NURSES STILL GETTING THE SUPPORT OF THE PUBLIC IN DISPUTE

CONSTANT TOOTING AND BEEPING OF HORNS AS THE SUPPLY OF SCONES AND COFFEE ROLL ON....

Public support for the nurses strike shows no sign of waning as INMO members took to the picket line outside the Louth County Hospital last Tuesday and Thursday.

There’s constant tooting and beeping of horns from passing motorists and a stream of donations from coffee to scones. A consignment of umbrellas was dropped down by DkIT Sport during Tuesday’s downpour and fire fighters from Dundalk turned up on Thursday morning to lend their support to the striking nurses. Lo- cal councillors and members of the public have walked alongside them outside the hospital gates in a show of solidarity.

With a three further days of industrial action planned tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday, local nurses say that they are buoyed up by this support.

‘We are getting amazing support from the public,’ says public health nurse Anita Roddy, chairperson of the Dundalk branch of the INMO.

‘It’s very sad that we have to be here,’ she says. ‘It goes against everything that our livelihood is about but we have no choice as nurses are being treated so badly.’

This is the second time that Anita and fellow public health nurse Sinead Reilly have taken part in industrial action. They were both on the strike lines twenty years ago and they say that the nurses resolve is showing no sign of weakening, despite the fact that they are losing pay when they go on strike.

‘We want pay restoration and fairness, better staffing levels for safer patient care,’ says Sinead.

‘ The bottom line is we have the same level of education as other health professions but we don’t get the same pay, even though we work longer hours,’ says Anita Roddy.

She challenges the pay rates for nurses which have been quoted by HSE management.

‘I’m qualified forty years this year,’ says Anita. ‘ I’m qualified as a general nurse, a mid-wife and in public health nursing and I’m getting €50,000 a year. I don’t know where they are getting these figures from. I don’t know anyone on those wages. It’s not fair the way our wages are being represented. It’s just not true.’

Sinead, who works a four day week as a public health nurse, says she takes home €500 a week after deductions.

‘ This is why we’re here,’ says Anita. ‘ The wage structure is so unfair. Nurses are really struggling. We have children to feed and mortgages to pay just like everyone else.’

She says she knows of nurses going to work hours before their shift starts so that they can get free parking.

Sinead points out it goes against the grain for nurses to leave their patients.

‘Last year in the snow, nurses came in and slept in their sleeping bags,’ she recalls.

They are worried that unless their demands for better pay and conditions are met that the exodus of young nurses abroad will continue.

‘Who can blame them for leaving, for going somewhere that there is better pay and conditions?’ says Sinead. ‘ The patient to staff ratio is much lower in other countries so they are working in a safer environment. Here, if someone rings in sick, there might be no one to cover for them for a whole day, which means that everyone else has to cover for them.’

‘People need a nurse when they are born and when they are dying and at different stages in between,’ says Anita.

They fear that the Government is banking on the nurses caving in as they face losing more pay as the strike continues.

‘‘I think the Government are hoping that we’ll crack,’ says Anita.

However, she says they are adamant that they won’t back down.

‘We are getting lots of support. The fire fighters were up here this morning. People are bringing us up coffee, buns, soup. Members of the public are coming up and walking with us. They know what we do.’

Having picketed in rain, hail and snow over the past two weeks, last Thursday’s sunshine was a welcome break but it was the only good news as the Government shows little sign of meeting their demands.

Health Minister Simon Harris said in the Dail that ‘ the stakes are hight’ and that there is a danger that hospitals become unsafe as the strike continues.

However, he said meeting the pay demands of the nurses would put the public finances into an unsustainable spiral.

Nurses are getting a pay rise under the current wage agreement and it would be unfair to other unions which are abiding by its rules to single out one profession for more pay, he added.