Protest at midwest maternity hospital
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation will hold a lunchtime protest this Tuesday at 1pm regarding unsafe midwife and nurse staffing at the University Maternity Hospital Limerick.
The root of this crisis lies in the HSE’s Pay and Numbers Strategy, introduced in 2023–2024, which cut approximately 30–35 frontline nursing and midwifery posts at UMHL, imposing new staff ceilings, recruitment limits and pay spend caps.
The impact on this frontline demand led clinical service has been catastrophic for a hospital already under significant pressure. Many areas of the hospital are now running rosters at 50% below safe levels; the Neonatal Unit is beyond safe capacity while awaiting HSE approval for service expansion and the Labour Ward has daily deficits of midwives on duty.
The HSE has further breached an agreement reached in the hospital in 2015 at the WRC regarding minimum midwife and nurse staffing levels.
All the concerns were raised repeatedly with management last year and a subsequent inspection by HIQA has independently verified that the situation is not sustainable. This report was published in April 2026. Our members are now carrying insurmountable workloads to try to maintain safe clinical care for all mothers and babies.
A recent offer of just 10 additional posts will not have any significant impact such is the levels of deficits. Nurses and midwives at the hospital are working in extremely unsafe conditions, they are not just concerned for their own safety but that of mothers and babies.
INMO Assistant Director of Industrial Relations for Midwest Mary Fogarty said: “Our members will protest at the failures of the HSE to:
- Uphold the agreement on staffing at the hospital brokered by the INMO and local management at the WRC in 2015;
- Provide funding for the expansion of the staffing levels in the neo natal unit and allowing this unit to run at overcapacity;
- Ensure safe staffing levels in the hospital leading to burnout and work-related stress amongst midwives and nurses;
- Protect the hospital from the HSE Pay and Numbers strategy which caused the loss of approximately 35 nursing and midwifery posts.”