The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
NURSES in Clare and throughout the Mid-West have overwhelmingly supported a national ballot for industrial action. The result of the ballot coincides with the revelation there are up to 60 nursing vacancies in University Hospital Limerick (UHL), which continues to struggle with overcrowding as INMO figures recorded 56 patients on trolleys on Tuesday, December 18. According to INMO industrial relations officer, Mary Fogarty, this doesn’t include ward nursing posts that were not funded since reconfiguration removed 24-hour casualty cover from Ennis and Nenagh Hospitals in April 2009. Ms Fogarty said eight beds were closed in St Camillus Hospital, Limerick and about ten funded beds in St Joseph’s Geriatric Hospital, Ennis. The union official pointed out if there was an examination about what St Joseph’s really required, this figure would be much higher. Asked if industrial action in the new year would made chronic overcrowding even worse, she stressed nurses were left with no other option. She said the …
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