Qualified foreign nurses passed over, INO hears

WARD managers appointing staff to act in their absence are passing over non-nationals in favour of more junior Irish staff, overseas nurses’ representatives have claimed.

Speaking at the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) AGM in Killarney yesterday, Filipino nurse Fidel Taguinod said favouring Irish staff left equally or better-qualified foreign nurses feeling undervalued and discriminated against.

“Qualified overseas nurses feel they are being denied the chance to develop skills by ward managers who delegate more responsibility to junior Irish colleagues.”

Mr Taguinod said the feedback from colleagues he had spoken to in the INO’s overseas branch was that some found it difficult to progress. However, both he and fellow Filipino Arnold Arcaina, who works in St Joseph’s Hospital in Ennis, Co Clare, said it was not always deliberate policy by ward managers, but an ignorance on the part of managers in relation to their qualifications and training.

They blamed the speed at which overseas recruitment was carried out and employers’ beliefs it would be on a stop-gap basis. The situation would improve now they were being offered fixed-term contracts, they said. A motion requesting managers to delegate responsibility based on qualifications and not ethnicity was passed.

The pay anomaly that exists between registered mental handicap nurses (RMHN) and houseparents/childcare workers without medical qualifications came up for the second consecutive day. An emergency motion calling for immediate action to eliminate the anomaly was carried unanimously. Mental handicap nurses claim they receive up to e3,000 less than staff they supervise within the intellectual disability sector.

The RMHN committee meets next Tuesday to decide whether to ballot members for industrial action in light of consistent failures to address their grievances.

Delegates also expressed concern that they may be expected to take the slack when junior doctors’ working hours are cut in August to meet EU requirements.

General Secretary Liam Doran said the INO had written to employers, advising members would not take on extra duties without extra pay, training and staff.

He also warned against hospital managers making local arrangements to meet the working time directives.

He said discussions had to be at a national level.

Cavan delegates called for a clear whistle-blowing policy, to formalise complaint-making procedures, including authority to voice concerns in confidence, and provision of education and training in clinical incident reporting, now that medicine had “gone from being safe to dangerous”.