Nurses in Naas General Hospital will begin industrial action on 9 February after the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) served notice of industrial action on HSE management at the hospital.
The INMO said its members believe it has become “increasingly unacceptable and unsafe” that persistent staffing deficits remain unresolved while service expansion proceeds without adequate resourcing, which it says is creating significant clinical risk.
INMO Industrial Relations Officer Karen McCann stated that despite “repeated efforts” to highlight clinical risk concerns, “no substantive action” has been taken to address what the union describes as unsafe staffing levels impacting patient safety, staff wellbeing, and compliance with agreed safe staffing frameworks.
The INMO said current staffing levels across multiple clinical areas are “unsafe, unsustainable, and non-compliant with professional standards,” adding that reliance on agency, overtime, and redeployment places both patient safety and staff wellbeing at “significant risk.”
The INMO said there are significant staffing deficits across the Emergency Department, describing staffing as 22% less than the recommended number of 62.5 whole-time equivalents (WTE) based on the 2022 Safe Staffing Framework.
It also reported that Emergency Department attendances increased from 29,592 in 2022 to 37,654 in 2025 (approximately 27%). The INMO said the current staffing cohort is 48.5 WTE, and that eight staff on maternity leave/unpaid leave have not been replaced, with “no uplift” for the increase in attendances.
The INMO said Naas General Hospital has been “consistently overcrowded,” with over 5,004 patients cared for on trolleys since July 2024. It said attendances at the Emergency Department increased significantly to over 37,000 presentations in 2025, without a corresponding increase in staffing or bed capacity.
The union also said nurses are highlighting that 83% occupancy is the recognised safe level, and that this is breached on a daily basis.
Discover more from The Irish Nurse
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
