Work to Rule begins today
national |
rights, freedoms and repression |
opinion/analysis 
Monday April 02, 2007 11:56
by Supporter of Nurses
This is an anti-Mary Harney Rant.
The banner and link to the I.N.O site are included here so that people
can go take a look see. I am not a nurse, nor do I represent a union
anymore- but I have done and I know when a media campaign is being
played out.
In this instance Mary Harney is attempting to use media to isolate
the Nurses unions and it does not wash.
Last week she went live on the RTE Nine O clock news and said that
the maternity hospital problem in Cork was "about money":
Hogwash- The Maternity hospital problem was about the failure
of both the state and the HSE to think of the patient- its all down to
numbers and figures.
http://www.ino.ie
Just because the Minister for Health states something is about money
does not mean it is, it means that she is incapable of understanding anything
except money.
The midwives in Cork had not done fire-drills, there was inadequate training
there was the chance of agency nurses being brought in who were unfamiliar with
the rotas and being paid higher than the midwives from the four maternity
hospitals in Cork.
They were obviously very unhappy with the situation. Indeed the spokeswoman
had accused the HSE of bullying. which does not surprise me anyway.
She re-iterated that the issue of the women was first and foremost.
This morning the INO and the Psychiatric nurses assoc. have begun a work to
rule, pay and conditions are cited. many psych nurses are working in third
world conditions where they have been assaulted (both physically and sexually)
Psychiatry in ireland is appalling, with drugs considered the panacea for all ills.
Chidren are often put in adult units.
Mary Harney thinks this is "about money too"
Its not- the unions are at the end of their tethers. There is bullying.
There have been new regimes brought in that are not agreed.
People have been fired so cheaper staff are brought in. There are allegations
of corruption and malpractice.
The Minister for health may repeat over and over that nurses must use the
structures. they do not work. Young peoples lives are at risk. Patient care is reduced to
drug company sponsorship. People are overworked and underpaid.
Solidarity to the Nurses Organisations!
Shame on Harney!
Shame on the Labour Party, who left the INO in Isolation!
Comments (11 of 11)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11fair play to the nurses, i hope they stick it out this time. i think in the past they have put the patients interests first, stopping or cutting short strike action because of the effect it's having on the patients in general. this time they must keep it going - the situation in the hospitals has to be brought to a head and most people are with them on this.
its a call for support for the nurses!
The nurses are entitled to a 35 hour week. The HSE are already trying to say that they might give it if no extra staff are required! I say rubbish!
Thousands of extra nurses will be needed and must be hired. Otherwise both patients and nurses will end up under more stress.
Every Dail beginning after summer recess the State (with overall majority) votes a 17%
wage increase to :
TD'S
Consultants.
and other close buddies.
The reason why the Government use the media to break strikes is because they
dominate the agenda- did that never occur?
Before Labour moved into the centre they were the party that represented the unions.
Mary Harney has both blatantly and beligerently used the media to re-focus the
issues of sex and physical abuse against pscyhiatric nurses.
HSE are managers, they are a government voice-box.
We have waiting lists because nurse-managers are not allowed:
1. Prescribe medication.
2. Discharge patients.
That is the consultants job. They are the establishment within the hospital.
They freely negotiate salary and block pay-deals to make their point.
we live in corruption where patient care is last behind the wage packet
of the consultant. Nurses work in appalling conditions of danger and get
no benefit.
Guess what- its a boys club. Look at the managers/women nurses ratio.
There is a hierarchical control system operating in the Health service that has
been nurtured by the state and the nurses get blamed for demanding respect,
safety and equality!
She is shit at her job- afterall its about pharmaceutical and bio-tech
wealth and sponsorship not the patient- not the worker.
http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/breaking/1014...omnet
Nurses are now manually recording their work- which is interesting as they have to decipher so
much consultant bad handwriting on prescriptions on a daily basis.
Now the flipping consultants will have to read nurses writing- Oh the worm is turning.
Solidarity!
[maybe Labour and FG , as putative opposition leaders would like to send their support-
they have complained enough of the Health services- or do they support the
bollox hierarchy too?
.
a Banner!
Sad to see the labour party refusing to support our claim.
We're not alone though
some of the more gullible child hacks may believe it!
Hospital Non-Consultant Doctors earn (interns, starting. re: IMO.ie) €16.29 an hour and work a mandatory 58 hours a week. They are also obliged to work 65 hours continously -where one week ends and an other begins.
HNCDs didn't taken a fraction of the sick leave that Nurses did last year, proportionate to their numbers. And they are in contact with patients to the same extent.
Pay and conditions for Nurses has improved considerably over the last few years especially with the introduction of Care Attendants ("Nurse's Aid", the lowest rung of the Hospital Employees' ladder). They do all the most menial tasks. Un-unionised, frequently employed through agencies and without permanent, pensionable positions.
Anyone who works in a Hospital environment will be quite aware that while Nurses work long shifts, they don't work that hard. Any pay rise ought to be linked to productivity.
If Nurses hours are brought down to 35 hours a week than the HNCDs will have to shoulder the burden of the extra work, like always. Doctors hours are due to come down to 56 hours (2008-2009) and 48 hours (2010).
In the last ten years the amount of taxpayers money going into the health-service has outpaced both the growth in the economy and the growth in the tax raised from the wealth produced by the Irish people. Almost all of this new money has gone, not to employ more health-workers and fund better facilities, but to fund pay-increases to the existing health-employees.
Every new injection of tax-payers money into the health services is inevitably followed by an opportunist raid on the new money by the existing staff. Meanwhile, wards remain closed, facilities remain unmanned, and people languish on trollies because there is nothing left after the blackmailers have been paid off.
These health-workers (doctors, nurses, care-staff, and administrators) have already been the beneficiaries of national wage agreements which have seen them realize pay-hikes far greater than those obtained by the poor sods in the private-sector whose labour and taxes fund most of this largess. Most of these greedy health-workers have total job-security and taxpayer funded pensions which the private employees who fund their priveleged gravy-train could not even dream of, let alone afford.
And we shouldn't buy this 'angel of mercy' crap they spin to try to get public sympathy (and prise open our wallets). They do a job like everyone else. By the same measure the workers in our sanitary authorities, refuse-collectors, and those who work in our water-treatment facilities have a far greater statistical benefit on the overall health and longlevity of our community. And could anyone imagine our decent bin-men refusing to provide services for innocent sick babies?
To hell with these cynical pirates. Lets hire more of the wonderful Phillipino nurses who increasingly provide such wonderful professional competent and uncomplaining care in many of our hospitals.(and are no doubt looked down upon with distain by the local grandees who are behind this utterly meritless industrial action).
Joe Duffy's liveline programme has engaged in a disgraceful hatchet job on the nurses during the past week. I have lodged a complaint with RTE over the content of the programme and would suggest that others do the same.
The nurses are demanding parity and respect for the work that
they do- the minister for Health treats them like wage slaves.
Meanwhile the consultants have refused to negotiate with the minister
on the next round of their pay agreement but the media are glibly ignoring the
issue and pushing the mis-management of the health service onto the workers.
The consultants , much like the barristers and judges have decided to await
the outcome of the general election and a possible alternative government or
at least a cabinet re-shuffle to accomplish their big budget packages.
The nurses need support.
The HSE have consistently made themselves unavailable for negotiation.
The consultant issue demonstrates the complete lack of balls on the
part of the state to deal in any way with the two-tier health system
and they are quite happily letting the nurses take the blame
for a third worls health system in the richest country in Europe.
=Open support for corruption.
=Two tier Health system
=Abdication of duty of care to patient in favour of creating a
hierarchical structure.
= The board of management of most hospitals have an archbishop
or bishop- wtf do they know of patient care.
(Diarmuid Martin is chair of crumlin children's Hospital and pushed for re-location
to the Mater site)
=A corrupt health system dedicated to self-enrichment and multi national
domination
=FF/PD privatisation
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