Your priorities with the president
Martina Harkin-Kelly, INMO president
Centenary planning meetings The INMO’s centenary is a major milestone. We started celebrations with an event for members in Dublin’s Mansion House. Our centenary annual delegate conference in Trim will see further celebrations, including the launch of Mark Loughrey’s excellent INMO history book, A Century of Service , along with the centenary badges being awarded to the hundreds of delegates at the conference. A final plank of celebrations will be announced at the conference. I would encourage all branches and sections to get in involved – it’s not often an organisation has its 100th anniversary. Nursing Now launch Nursing Now is a global campaign to raise the profile and status of nurses. The INMO is the lead organisation of the campaign in Ireland. The campaign aims for recognition of nurses’ contribution to healthcare, gender equality, and wider society. Its aims include greater investment in nursing, more nurses in leadership positions, and increasing nurses’ input and impact on healthcare. Launching the campaign in the old Richmond Hospital in April, I was proud to see international nursing experts speak alongside nurses from Ireland – including student nurse Roisin O’Connell, intellectual disabilities nurse Ailish Byrne, and Shirley Ingram, an ANP in cardiology. The launch event heard from Elizabeth Adams, president of the European Federation of Nurses, Dame Christine Beasley, Nursing Now board member, and Howard Catton, interim CEO of the Interna- tional Council of Nurses. This could not be occurring at a more opportune time for this campaign, as Ireland’s nurses and midwives clearly need to develop a strong voice in our health service and in the coming reforms. EFN General Assembly, Brussels While things have been busy on the home front, the INMO continues to represent members internationally. The European Federation of Nurses (EFN) held its General Assembly in April in Brussels. One of the topics we focused on was the future of the European Nurses Research Foundation, founded in 2016, which is the research arm of the EFN. I represented the INMO on a working group to re-examine its business model and governance. We made recommendations to address previous concerns, which were agreed by the assembly. The EFN also agreed to share information about salary nego- tiations internationally, to improve practice across Europe. The EFN is in the process of nominating two directors, more details of which can be found on their website, with elections taking place on June 17 and 18. The EFN’s presidential elections are scheduled for October 2019 and the sitting president Elizabeth Adams (an INMO member) is eli- gible to run for a further two-year term. At the Brussels meeting, I expressed our thanks to the EFN for its support to striking INMO members in the recent industrial action, and update our international colleagues on the progress made since. Centenary delegate conference At the time of print, we are making the final preparations for our centenary delegate conference. The recent ballot results and strikes will no doubt feature heavily in dis- cussions. It will also be a time to reflect on our wider priorities as a movement, as we celebrate our 100th year. The health service and our workplaces have changed dramati- cally over the past century – and will clearly do so again in the coming one. Sláintecare, in particular, will change the form our health service takes. It is vital that nurses and midwives are at the centre of policy discussions around these changes. But some things do not change; our values remain clear and consistent throughout both centuries. Skilled, dedicated care for our patients is one for all nurses and midwives. Support for colleagues and belief in our collective, unified strength is another for any union member.
Quote of the month “The test of our progress is not whether we addmore to the abundance of those who havemuch; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” - Franklin D Roosevelt
Report from the Executive Council
THE Executive Council met on a number of additional occasions this year on ear- lier dates than scheduled, largely due to the industrial dispute over recruitment and retention. But as they say the show must go on, so the Executive must also deal with the usual day-to-day organi- sational issues. At the time of going to print, we were engaged in the last stages of planning our centenary annual delegate conference (ADC). The Executive deliber- ated over the 34 submitted motions – 17 of which were on industrial affairs. Many of your branches and sections have met to discuss the motions, debate their contents, and select speakers. We will also have elections this year for the Standing Order committee, which is responsible for many of the ADC prepa- rations. All of this preparation took place against the backdrop of balloting across the country, at many hundreds of bal- loting meetings running from April 8 to May 1. This is a longer time frame than usual to allow as many votes as possible.. I would like to thank all the IROs, staff, Exec members and volunteer reps for their work in seeing this democratic exercise through. The next planned Executive Council meeting June 10-11. You can contact me at INMO HQ at Tel: 01 6640 600, through the president’s blog on www.inmo.ie or by email to: president@inmo.ie Get in touch
For further details on the above and other events see www.inmo.ie/President_s_Corner
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