The HSE is calling on the Irish Nurses Organisation to withdraw a motion of no confidence in senior management at Portiuncula Hospital, following what they are calling the ‘breakdown’ of Labour Relation Commission talks on Wednesday.
However, the Irish Nurses Organisation is insisting that the talks have not failed, but were merely adjourned due to the refusal of the HSE and hospital management to engage in talks while the motion of no confidence remains in place.
Both sides of the growing dispute between senior nurse managers and the HSE were called to exploratory talks by the Labour Relations Commission on Wednesday this week in an attempt to negotiate a return to work for five INO senior nurse managers who have been absent from work since November.
Following the unsuccessful talks, a spokesperson for the HSE said that, although the dispute is costing the hospital over €30,000 a month, in the present situation “no resolution is possible”.
“The HSE went into the Labour Relations Commission in good faith today [Wednesday] to resolve this dispute and to facilitate back- to-work arrangements for the five nurse managers. In order to do so we asked the INO to withdraw their stage managed vote of no confidence in the hospital management and to cease their personal attacks on them.
In the absence of movement from the INO on these issues, no resolution is possible,” said the spokesperson.
The HSE said the vote of no confidence taken last week by the local branch of the INO was “stage-managed” by a handful of nurses and constituted “an attack on the public hospital service which the union would never attempt in the private sector”.
But the INO is insisting that a crisis of confidence does exist, following the staging of a second lunchtime protest on Thursday last week, when the motion of no confidence in the director of nursing and general manager was passed.
“The continued support shown by hundreds of nurses and other staff in lunchtime protests at the hospital about the unfair treatment of the five senior managers is evidence enough that a crisis of confidence does exist,” read a statement from the INO this week.
The organisation declined to make any further comment “which would further frustrate the Labour Relations Commission’s efforts to resolve this difficult personalised and sensitive dispute”.
The dispute at Portiuncula has been ongoing since September 2008 when the five senior nurse managers raised concerns regarding the health and safety of staff and patients and some of their conditions of employment.
When the matter failed to reach a resolution, two of the nurses were suspended from work with full pay, and all five are on stress-related sick leave since November.
While the HSE argues that it has done everything possible to resolve the dispute, the INO says the five have at all times co-operated with all reasonable suggestions to enable their return to their normal working conditions, but that their efforts have been hampered by preconditions proposed by management.
