INMO members working in the public health service were balloted throughout the month of August regarding the cost-of-living pressures nurses and midwives are under.

Members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation have voted in favour of industrial action, following a six-week in-person ballot regarding the need for Government to meaningfully provide for acceptable pay increases in any further public sector pay agreement

The INMO has reported that over 9,945 patients were admitted to hospital without a bed this August, making this the worst August on record for hospital overcrowding. 

The INMO has stated the situation in Cork University Hospital and Cork University Maternity Hospital is highly dangerous, noting significant frontline nursing and midwifery vacancies in the hospitals that are not being filled.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has urged the Health Service Executive to get a handle on a ‘summer trolley crisis’. This comes as over 617 patients are without a bed in Irish hospitals this morning.

10,394 patients were treated on a trolley or in an inappropriate space in July, according to the INMO. The union states that this is the first July on record that trolley figures have exceeded 10,000.