A motion to support the Irish Nurses and Midwifery Organisation (INMO) industrial action has passed at Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union’s (TCDSU) council tonight.
Laura Killeen, Faculty Convenor for Health Sciences, who proposed the motion, spoke in favour, saying that “students nurses and midwives will be on placement” when the series of one-day strikes occur, and that the INMO “represent [students] in ways this union can’t”.
The motion was proposed by Laura Killeen, Faculty Convenor for Health Sciences, and seconded by Alice MacPherson, Faculty of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences Convenor.
Following a nationwide ballot in December, 90 per cent of INMO members voted in favour of strike action to highlight issues related to staffing, a major issue for nurses and midwives in Ireland. Sixty two per cent of members of the INMO turned out to vote.
The council’s agenda noted that the “industrial action is in response to issues that directly affect the student nurses and midwives who are members of TCDSU”.
Hospitals have been struggling to retain and recruit staff for the past number of years and levels of nurses and midwives in Ireland have fallen by 3500 since 2008, according to INMO figures.
INMO have written to the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, and Director General of the Health Service Executive, Tony O’Brien, seeking talks to introduce measures to address these staffing issues. Following this, if industrially action is called, members will work to rule. INMO have identified that this series of one day strikes will cause bed closures and the curtailment of services.
INMO President, Martina Harkin-Kelly, said in a press release that INMO members “have suffered eight years of staff shortages, excessive workloads and having their voice, and professional judgement, ignored by the system which is fixated on budgets and targets and certainly not on patients and quality of care”.
Morgan Clarke, Kathleen McNamee, Brónagh Kennedy and Arianna Schardt contributed reporting to this piece.
