Thousands Of Hours Stolen From Cork Nurses

Nurses in Cork University Hospital are set to ballot for industrial action. The nurses working in the surgery department are at breaking point with issues including understaffing, misuse of the on-call system, poor scheduling which they say is leading to an unsafe environment for patients.

“Our members have raised issues regarding patient safety, delayed and late starts of cases, lack of post-op beds for recovery, and the reliance of members to work past their rostered hours.”

Their union the INMO has said that staff must work past their shifts ending due to “poor scheduling and overruns” with nurses working more that 5,500 hours unpaid.

This industrial dispute is one of many in our health system: In late 2024 and early 2025 the main unions representing health care workers staged lunchtime protests at what they said was the deliberate policy of HSE bosses to block the hiring of healthcare workers.

The HSE had published a report called “The Pay and Numbers Strategy” which at the stroke of a pen effectively abolished thousands of frontline jobs such as nurses, paramedics and healthcare assistants.

The protests and work to rule was quickly ended by union leaders with an underwhelming agreement to “prioritise promotion opportunities for existing staff” while keeping “Employment ceilings set under the HSE’s Pay and Numbers Strategy.”

Worker power and leverage given up for nothing in return.

The recent strike by ambulance workers over pay and conditions was another isolated fight in this long running battle between healthcare workers and their bosses. The unions suspended the ambulance strike to enter talks with the government but with the pay increase already recommended by an independent report the time for talking was over.

Going into talks with no commitment to the pay increases again gave away the only leverage they have.

Section 39 workers in Northside Home Care recently were on strike over pay and will continue with their dispute unresolved. Other care workers in Blanchardstown and Inner City Home Care were also on strike with further strikes planned.

Nurses in Naas General Hospital voted for industrial action in February of this year over unsafe staffing levels.

Unions surveyed healthcare workers in 2024 and “88% of those who took part in the survey said there is a vacancy in their department. 74% said the vacancies were having a “very negative impact” on services” Another 2024 survey of healthcare workers had 68% reporting that they experienced illness due to work-related stress and 67% of workers reported that they are considering leaving their role.

Why are public hospitals in crisis?

Ireland is well below the OECD average spend on our health service – in 2022 health expenditure was 6.1% of GDP compared with the OECD average of 9.2%. But even when money is spent it’s going into private hands through outsourcing.

Spending was brutally cut in the 10 years post 2008 financial crash. The HSE was working with less staff, fewer hospital beds and a budget that had to deal with more people as the population grew.

The financial crisis was used as an excuse to ram through reforms aimed at privatising the health service. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael governments, with help from Labour and the Greens, drove this to line the pockets of wealthy private companies and individuals like Dennis O’Brien who runs many private hospitals.

Today access for most of the population to both hospital and GP care depends on the person’s ability to pay. The creation of an Irish NHS has been long touted by left parties in Ireland as an end goal to fix the health system.

A socialised health system in isolation in an Irish capitalist state will not work long term. It would not survive in a system where a small minority of people hold incredible wealth and power. It would always be under threat from the market.

A real Irish NHS public health service would need to be part of an overall Irish socialist state with workers in the driving seat. Unless workers call the shots every health service is under threat from the market.

What can we do?

Health workers need to get active in their unions and take positions of leadership. We need to push our unions for more militant action. What we need is workers in the driving seat of our unions with a recallable leadership that can be held to account.

We are at war with a boss class that does not prioritise our interests. We as workers should have control of our workplaces, of our industries, of society and our economy and run it in a truly democratic way.

We need a trade union and political workers’ movement that is working towards dismantling the current oppressive neo-liberal state. The task ahead for socialists is to transform all these sporadic and unconnected strikes and disputes into one single battle, into conscious class struggle.

It starts by supporting the nurses’ strike at Cork University Hospital.