The intensive care nurses at University Hospital Limerick started a work-to-rule strike on Friday morning.
The hospital staffing shortage was described as a “unprecedented step” by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).
With all ICU beds still available for admissions, the INMO claimed the ICU is now running at a 22% staffing shortage.
Mary Fogarty, assistant director of industrial relations at INMO said: “Regularly shifts in the ICU are significantly depleted and this is predicted to continue. Our members are very concerned about the potential deviation away from one nurse to one patient care in the ICU.”
“The lack of consistent safe staffing in the intensive care unit is having a detrimental impact on the physical and mental wellbeing of our members working in this unit and their patients.”
The INMO said it had engaged extensively with hospital management and the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
Ms Fogarty added: ““In order to make staffing safe in UHL ICU and ensure that patients are getting the one-to-one care that is expected in an intensive care unit, the INMO is calling on hospital management to temporarily close two beds in the ICU pending the recruitment of suitably qualified and experienced ICU nurses. Unlike other hospitals experiencing similar nursing deficits, management in Limerick have been unwilling to do this thus far.
“Our members in UHL ICU have been working at full tilt since the beginning of the pandemic with very little reprieve. It is unacceptable that they are constantly expected to deliver nursing care in an unsafe care.”
Ms Fogarty said the decision to begin work-to-rule industrial action had not been taken lightly, however, she said members “feel like all other avenues to resolve the issues that exist in UHL ICU have been closed off by hospital management”.
64 patients were waiting for beds in UHL on Friday morning, according to the most recent Trolley Watch data from the INMO. Hospitals throughout the nation have 479 people on trolleys, with Limerick suffering the most. 15 of those using trolleys are under the age of 16.
With 63 patients in need of beds, Cork University Hospital is the hospital with the second-worst effect, followed by Tallaght University Hospital with 33.