A nurse has been found guilty of professional misconduct by the nursing board, An Bord Altranais, after she struck up a conversation about her financial problems with a patient and ended up borrowing €200 from her.

Hospital staff missed 13 separate chances to save Savita Halappanavar’s life — including six in a single four-hour period.

A midwife who engaged in lengthy court proceedings more than a decade ago to prevent An Bord Altranais stopping her assisting at home births has been struck off the nursing board’s register.

Serious medication errors and a risk of choking at meal times were among a series of major concerns raised about the management of a Co Galway nursing home.

Irish nurses have been tempted by higher wages and less stress in Australia, says Claire Droney

Two nurses have been struck off the register of nurses as the results of investigations by the Fitness to Practise Committee of the nursing regulatory body, An Bord Altranais.

The Health Minister, Dr James Reilly, has said that the fact that nobody was accountable for patients who were left lying on trolleys in corridors for long periods in Tallaght Hospital is "completely unacceptable".

IRELAND’S first ever professor of midwifery has said “it doesn’t make clinical, social or economic sense” for pregnant women to give birth in centralised, specialist facilities.

A TOTAL of 14 nurses have been sanctioned by their regulatory body, An Bord Altranais, in recent months for professional misconduct and poor professional performance.

Nurses at the Emergency Department at the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick are to hold a four-hour work stoppage next Wednesday in protest at staffing levels and budget cuts.

INDEPENDENT health watchdogs have been asked to inspect all hospitals for patient mistreatment after it emerged the number of emergency department trolley waits last month was the highest August rate in HSE history.

MORE than 900 nurses have had their names removed from the Register of Nurses over their failure to pay annual fees to An Bord Altranais.

THE 25 rape victims whose criminal cases may be thrown out due to a nurse’s failure to register with the nursing board met with gardaí and the DPP yesterday to discuss the consequences for their cases.

Concerns have emerged over the cases of 25 people who were examined at the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit at Letterkenny General Hospital following an administrative error by the HSE.

THE situation where student nurses will not get paid for their work placement is deplorable, morally reprehensible and just plain wrong.

THREE nurses have been barred from the profession for reasons including assaulting a nursing home patient, the unauthorised use of medicine and the failure to properly monitor a patient in their care following recent decisions of the nursing board, An Bord Altranais.

A NURSE who took methadone from a patient for her own use has been censured for professional misconduct by An Bord Altranais.

THE stress of facing a fitness to practice inquiry has led to hospitalisation, and even suicide of nurses, and the situation will worsen if inquiries are held in public, nurses heard yesterday.

REJECTION of the Croke Park pay deal does not mean nurses will go on strike, the general secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said yesterday.

HALF of newly qualified nurses got a job as a registered nurse within four weeks of graduating, a new study shows.

A NURSE against whom three allegations of abuse had been made remained on duty in a nursing home run by the Health Service Executive (HSE) until two further incidents of alleged abuse had taken place.

A NURSE who stole prescription forms and forged doctors’ signatures to get medicines to feed her drug habit is among three who have been struck off the official nurses’ register.

NURSES have been warned they have a professional responsibility to their patients to avail of the swine flu jab as soon as the vaccine becomes available.

THE Government needs to enact laws to bring teachers accused of behaving inappropriately towards children before a new teaching council, the Children’s Ombudsman has claimed as the children’s body saw a rise in complaints made to it.

THE power to hold inquiries into teachers who breach conduct rules and remove their authority to work in schools will soon be handed over to the profession’s self-regulation body.

A NEW nurse education centre costing €5.3 million is to open at Mercy University Hospital in Cork.

THE slashing of 41 State agencies will be a “first installment” in a long term plan of reducing so-called quangos, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said last night.

SPENDING on health will only increase by a small amount in the budget, Health Minister Mary Harney warned yesterday.

The group representing the interest of Irish patients has warned that the possibility of another Michael Neary type scandal occurring in the health care system remains.

FOUR nurses made medical history yesterday by becoming the first entrants to a register that recognises their right to prescribe drugs.

THE first group of nurses and midwives to successfully complete a drug-prescribing programme received their certificates at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in Dublin yesterday.

THE Dublin City Coroner has recommended the development of national guidelines to allow independent midwives access to services at maternity hospitals.

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) and Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) talked late into the night last night to try to find a resolution to the staffing row which threatens the opening of the new maternity hospital in Cork.

A nurse convicted of poisoning and assaulting patients in a hospital had been branded "a killer" by sections of the media, her counsel said when her sentence was adjourned by Judge Frank O’Donnell.

NURSING home owners are “cutting corners” to boost profits and are facing little, if no, sanctions, the country’s health chief for elderly care claimed yesterday.

INSPECTIONS of Leas Cross show that there was a “consistent pattern of deficits in care” at the home, according to Professor Des O’Neill’s investigation.

FORMER nurses interested in returning to work are being targeted in the latest recruitment drive by the Health Services Executive in the south-east.

A nurse has admitted at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that she should have immediately reported her colleague to her superiors after she saw her use excessive force to inject an unprescribed drug to a patient.

One hundred and thirty more public bodies are coming under the remit of the Freedom of Information Act this week.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern yesterday accepted that hospitals should be regulated by a licensing authority as the political debate over the findings of the Lourdes Hospital inquiry continues.

IN response to Donna Roche's letter headlined 'Red tape hampers nursing services' (August 6), An Bord Altranais would like to state clearly that our role is to ensure that all those entered on our register are deemed professionally qualified and competent for such registration.

HOSPITAL services around the country are suffering from the nursing shortage. I am dissatisfied and frustrated with An Bord Altranais (ABA), the nursing body that processes nurse registrations.

ONE-IN-FOUR nurses who graduated last year have emigrated in search of better working conditions, according to the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO).