Nurses and midwives begin strike ballot

NURSES and midwives have begun voting for possible strike action, as they threaten to go on a series of 24-hour work stoppages.

The ballot of more than 40,000 members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) began yesterday, with the union urging members to vote to strike.

The work stoppage threat is a result of the INMO claiming that low pay is making it impossible to recruit and retain enough nurses and midwives, which is risking the safety of patients, limiting hospital capacity and contributing to the overcrowding crisis.

Voting will take place for just over three weeks, until December 13. If the outcome is in favour of striking, members will stop working for 24 hours, only providing lifesaving and emergency care as usual.

The INMO has warned that if the row goes unresolved, it will repeat the strike.

Phil Ní Sheaghdha, general secretary of the INMO, said the ballot is ‘all about safety’, adding: ‘Nurses and midwives do not want to go on strike. We just want to do our jobs and care for patients. Yet understaffing means we can no longer do that.’

Ms Ní Sheaghdha claimed that the government is ‘ignoring voices from the frontline’. ‘Without a pay rise for nurses and midwives, we will never be able to recruit enough staff for a safe health service.’

Fianna Fáil’s health spokesperson Stephen Donnelly this action by nurses and midwives should not come as a surprise. ‘The nurses have been flagging serious issues with recruitment retention and with working conditions for quite some time now, and I don’t think the government is listening to them,’ he said.

The ballot comes in the wake of the report the Public Service Pay Commission report which stated that average pay for HSE staff nurses last year was €51,000, including allowances and overtime, and there was no basis for a general pay increase for them.