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Reilly sorry for telling singing nurse to ‘stick to the day job’
As he left the conference hall following his address, some delegates chanted: “no more cuts.”
One delegate, Bolatito Aderemi from the Dublin South West branch, started to sing: “All we are saying is enough is enough.
As he passed her Dr Reilly said she should “stick to her day job”.
A number of delegates objected to the Minister’s comments and said the union should seek an apology.
Dr Reilly later met with Ms Aderami privately and apologised.
He said he had made a quip as he left the hall. He said he had been informed that someone had taken offence. He said he had not intended to offend anyone.
Ms Aderemi, who is originally from Nigeria, said the Minister had shaken her hand, tried to give her a hug and said he was sorry and did not mean to embarrass her. She said she accepted his apology.
Dr Reilly had been greeted in silence as he arrived at the conference. However he received applause following an anouncement that nurses would hold senior leadership positions inthe proposed new hospital groups and in the Department of Health.
He said each of the proposed new hospital groups, to be announced formally next week, will have to have a director of nursing as a full executive on the management team.
“I will (also) establish a new chief nursing officer role within the Department of Health, that this role will be at assistant secretary level and a full member of the management advisory committee and will have executive authority to lead the nursing profession in Ireland and represent its perspective both to Government and internationally.”
Dr Reilly told delegates that pay savings of €150 million had to achieved in the HSE this yearin addition to the many reforms and efficiencies designed to improve servies and to live within its budget.
“Frankly, we are between a rock and a hard place.”
The Minister said that management and unions were meeting at the Labour Relations Comission to explore all the avenues open to try to reach a resolution to reducing the paybill.
“If we can find such anagreement it would be so much better than an imposed solution.
However he said the country was borrowing €1 billion per month and that this could not continue.
Working conditions in hospitals are so bad that sometimes I get no sleep at all
I WOULDN’T SAY there’s been a single week since I’ve started working about a year and a half ago in the hospital that I’ve only had to work 48 hours a week – as the 2004 EU Working Time Directive instructs.
It can be anything up to over 100 hours a week. There was a couple of hours where I was working over Christmas where I was on call three times a week and you’d have to work the next day post-call as well.
Generally you wouldn’t get any sleep, or you might get one or two hours. You could end up working anything up to 36 hours in a row.
Thirty-six hours would be a record. But once a week you’d generally have to work 32 hours in a row.
It’s a killer. Adrenaline tends to get you through the first 20 hours. You start to feel the burn at around 4am. You focus then on the ward for a few hours, you make your way through it, you’re generally okay that night, but then the next day is really exhausting.
Is this government committed to media diversity?
via Column: Working conditions in hospitals are so bad that sometimes I get no sleep at all.
via Column: Working conditions in hospitals are so bad that sometimes I get no sleep at all.
Nurse staffing levels “critical”, says INMO · TheJournal.ie
NURSE STAFFING LEVELS in Ireland are “critical” compared to the UK, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has said today.
It has published comparative figures on staffing levels in Ireland compared to their UK counterparts, and say they have also drawn together international evidence that confirms a reduction in nurse staffing levels “negatively affects patient care in terms of higher mortality rates, increased adverse events such as patient falls, medication and transfusion errors, and delays in treatment.”
It also found that inadequate staffing is associated with longer lengths of stay and increased rates of readmission, both of which lead to increased healthcare costs. It says that this research “showed that poor staffing levels increase the risk of burnout amongst nurses which in turn increases the risk of poorer patient care”.
The figures show that in elderly care wards in Ireland, there were 121.87 less total care hours available on the ward per week, compared to the UK. On medical wards, there was 131.25 less hours per week in comparison, while in surgical wards there was a deficit of 225 total care hours compared to the UK.
Admissions and assessment units had two less staff on at every part of the day compared to their equivalent in the UK.
Standards
Speaking today, INMO General Secretary, Liam Doran said that all of this evidence, coupled with the inquiry into deaths at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust which found that the period investigated was characterised by cuts in staff and changes in skills ratios, “cannot be left unchallenged”.
He said:
Our members, without exception, are under unbearable pressure striving to provide safe practice and safe care to their patients/clients.
It is now time for the Minister for Health and the Government to take stock, look at the evidence which confirms our staffing levels are unacceptably low and to acknowledge that where there are poor staffing levels, patients suffer. They must, once and for all, lift the recruitment ban on frontline staff and put the ‘health’ back into the health service.
Doran said that the INMO will now be seeking an early meeting with the Oireachtas Committee on Health to present to them the results of this comparative study, together with the international research findings of the value of a registered nurse.
It will call upon them to initiate a process leading to safe nurse patient ratios in all areas of the Irish health care system.
Speaking in the Dáil today, Fianna Fáil Social Protection Spokesperson Willie O’Dea raised the report, and asked the Tánaiste if he was going to organise risk assessments for these staffing levels.
via Nurse staffing levels “critical”, says INMO · TheJournal.ie.
via Nurse staffing levels “critical”, says INMO · TheJournal.ie.
Closure of over 1,200 public nursing home beds criticised –
ABOUT 1,200 beds in public nursing homes have been closed since the Government came to power, according to new figures supplied by the Health Service Executive.
The cuts were criticised yesterday by Sinn Féin and trade union Siptu, who both accused Minister for Health James Reilly of favouring private care of older people over public facilities.
They coincide with mounting concern among policymakers over the future needs for residential care caused by an ageing population. Earlier this week, a report found that every day for the next decade an additional seven people would need long-term residential care. The number of over-85s in the population will more than double over the next decade.
There has also been a slowdown in the provision of private nursing home beds due to uncertainty about funding and difficulties in raising bank finance.
Sinn Féin health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, who obtained the figures from the HSE, said the situation was even worse than he had anticipated.
“With over 1,200 public nursing home beds taken out of the system over a 20-month period, and with further bed closures signalled, we are certainly facing a crisis in services for older people,” Mr Ó Caoláin said.
He accused Dr Reilly of “burning the candle at both ends” by imposing savage cuts on home help hours and homecare packages while at the same time closing down public nursing home beds and diminishing the capacity of long-stay public residential facilities.
“This Minister has no strategy or plan to protect our public health services and even less regard for the needs of older people,” he said.
Siptu spokesman Paul Bell accused the Government of abandoning public nursing care and said a situation where 75 per cent of beds were provided by the private sector was “unbalanced”. He called on the Dáil Public Accounts Committee to investigate the costs of the Government’s strategy of “divesting itself of responsibility for care of older people”.
According to the HSE, 443 public nursing home beds were closed this year up to August, while 758 were closed last year. A further 112 beds have been identified for closure later this year.
Bed closures include 230 in HSE South region, 199 in Dublin/North-East, 322 in West and 450 in Dublin/Mid-Leinster.
The HSE attributed the closures to service plan commitments, staffing reductions and the inability of some homes to meet compliance requirements of the Health Information and Quality Authority. It said a number of new public long-stay beds have come on stream in new units in Cork, Navan, Dublin, Tralee and Mullingar.
via Closure of over 1,200 public nursing home beds criticised – The Irish Times – Sat, Oct 27, 2012.
via Closure of over 1,200 public nursing home beds criticised – The Irish Times – Sat, Oct 27, 2012.
