Members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and of the trade union Fórsa working for the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Section 38 Voluntary Hospitals have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action following a six-week, in-person ballot. Nurses and midwives were balloted on the non-filling and delayed filling of vacant and suppressed posts. Over 2,000 nursing and midwifery posts were left unfilled in the public health system at the end of 2023. Union Fórsa said the suppression of these jobs means that existing health staff are forced to cope with an insufficient complement of staff in most departments. The union said this is adversely affecting services to older people, in addition to community and acute services and mental health services and said current pressures on services are set to get worse as demand rises in the winter months.
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For more information, please contact Paul de Beer or Oana Ciuca, De Burcht (Scientific Bureau for the Dutch Trade Union Movement) p.t.debeer@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Mehmet Koksal mkoksal@etui.org. For previous full issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit https://www.etui.org/Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter or consult the archive with all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu.
You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org.