Nurse can’t find work due to red tape ‘nonsense’
Co Carlow-born Joyce completed her nursing training in Britain but spent most of her working life in Canada before returning to Ireland four years ago.
“On my return, I heard so much about nursing shortages that I really wanted to help.
“I’ve worked in general hospitals, intensive care and accident and emergency (A&E) and I really feel that I have something to offer,” she said.
Last April, she first approached An Bord Altranais about registering as a general nurse in this country so she could begin to fill out applications for jobs in Cork.
Joyce was registered in Canada for years and in Britain prior to emigrating.
Nearly a year later and after spending €4,000 of her own money on a 12-week full-time Return to Professional Practice for Nurses course in Belfast, she still has no idea whether she will ever work in an Irish hospital ward.
She has been offered three jobs in the North since finishing the course.
Meanwhile, the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) has spearheaded a major campaign to improve nurses’ pay and working conditions so that the estimated 9,000 Irish-trained nurses who have emigrated might return to work at home and begin to meet the huge shortages in nursing staff here.
Such is the need for nurses that the Irish health services are propped up by an estimated 5,000 overseas nurses, many from the Philippines.
“Every time that I send in some kind of document, another document is then required,” added Joyce.
“I feel like I’m being sent from pillar to post. It has become nonsense as since I completed my refresher course, I’ve been offered three jobs in Belfast but I want to work in Cork,” said Joyce, who lives in Belgooly, Co Cork, with her husband Edwin.
“Every bit of information that I send is questioned, even down to the exact syllabus that I studied when I did my training in the 1960s. I fully understand they must be careful but this has become nonsense.”
Joyce is refusing to be put off by the “red tape” she is encountering but admits there have been many occasions where she has “felt like giving up”.
“I have been told by the Nursing and Midwifery Council in the UK that similar procedures don’t take place there even though they are governed by the same EU directives.
“I just feel this is wrong and I can see how many other people could be discouraged from getting back into the workforce.”
An Bord Altranais deputy chief executive Deirdre Hughes said she cannot comment on individual cases but pointed out that nurses are automatically registered here if their training qualifications meet the stipulations of a 1969/1970 EU directive.
They are also automatically registered if they have worked in their country of training for three of the past five years.
“If somebody doesn’t meet these requirements we have to look at each case individually and this can take time,” she said.
