Health department’s figures on nurses ‘wrong’
The department’s secretary general, Michael Scanlan, told a Dáil committee this week that Ireland’s nurse ratio was above the EU average.
Mr Scanlon told a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee that the average number of nurses per 1,000 population in the EU was 8.5, while a recent FÁS study on practicing nurses in Ireland showed that there were 12.2 per 1,000.
Committee chairman, Michael Noonan, said it was a dangerous road for Mr Scanlon to be going down, suggesting there were too many nurses. But Mr Scanlon said it was valid for the department to point out that the ratio of nurses here seemed to be higher than elsewhere.
INO deputy general secretary David Hughes said it was regrettable that Mr Scanlon had chosen to quote the census figure and not the department’s own employment figure. Asked if he was saying the figures quoted by Mr Scanlon at the committee meeting were wrong, Mr Hughes replied: “Absolutely!”
The INO had figures from the Workgroup of European Nurse Researchers indicating the average number of nurses per 1,000 population was 9.6. He said countries like Britain, Denmark, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands were way ahead of Ireland. Britain, would be 10.8, Denmark 9.7; Norway 11.6, while Germany, at 14.3, was the highest.
Mr Hughes pointed out that the comments made by Mr Scanlon flew in the face of everything the department had been doing up to now.
He pointed out that since 1998, the department had increased the number of student nurse places in anticipation of a major shortage.
