Local psychiatric nurses take industrial action
The local department of pyschiatry is located on the campus of Roscommon Univeristy Hospital.
The Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA is to begin targeted industrial action today in Mayo, Galway and Roscommon.
The union said it is in response to the refusal by the HSE to recruit all new graduate psychiatric nurses. The industrial action will take the form of a work to rule by nurses in the areas affected.
PNA General Secretary, Peter Hughes said the issue of the recruitment of up to 300 new graduate nurses is at the core of addressing the chronic understaffing throughout the mental health services which is impacting daily on the delivery of services.
“While PNA has secured nurse graduate positions in most areas of the country the issue has not been resolved in, Mayo, Galway and Roscommon,” he said. “This is hugely disappointing given the progress achieved in the rest of the country over the past week. This flies in the face of a HSE assurance given last February 2024 that all graduate psychiatric nurses would be recruited into our services.” He added that the failure of the HSE to recruit “these highly trained graduates into our mental health services means they will be lost to the private sector and attracted to posts abroad”.
“At a time when our mental health services are struggling to cope with 700 vacancies and are being maintained through a reliance on agency staff and overtime it is astonishing that the HSE can contemplate allowing this to happen.
“The issue of the recruitment of new graduate nurses is not only time critical but is essential given that we lose up to 500 nurses annually due to retirement and other reasons. There is no question that every one of our 300 nurse graduates are needed now given the levels of understaffing in mental health services.” He said that despite intense engagement with the HSE, the lack of urgency by the HSE in resolving the dispute is “inexcusable”.
“PNA is left with no option but to commence industrial action on Tuesday September 17th. This action will commence in mental health services in areas where all new graduates have not been offered permanent contracts. We believe that such a decision is the only way to attempt to safeguard the future of our services and our graduates.”
When contacted for comment, HSE Community Healthcare West said it was continuing to work to resolve the issues involved.
