‘Radical’ steps needed to retain nurses

OVERCROWDING, staff shortages and bed closures will continue unless radical steps are taken to keep nurses in Ireland, the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) warned yesterday.

The staffing crisis, coupled with the shortage of newly-qualified nurses requires “a radical solution”, INO general secretary Liam Doran said yesterday.

No new nurses will graduate next year because of the move from a three to a four-year degree programme.

“We know the problem and we know the solution but we don’t have the consistent and persistent willingness of the political system to implement those solutions,” Mr Doran told an executive meeting of the union in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, yesterday.

“The biggest problem we have at the moment is nursing shortages. We are short about 800 nurses in Dublin and 300 to 400 nationwide. Next year, no qualified nurses come on stream and this shortage will go up a further 1,500.

“This requires a radical solution. We need loyalty bonuses, paid sabbaticals after three years, a Dublin weighting allowance, improved flexi-time working and we need the first three points on the scale abolished to bring starting pay from €25,000 to €29,000.

“Unless something radical is done, we will be closing hundreds of beds right across the country in the latter half of 2005,” Mr Doran warned.

The only way the staffing crisis is being addressed is by recruiting from outside Europe but hospitals abroad are also attracting Irish nurses out of the country.

“We are training enough nurses in Ireland to meet our own needs but we are failing miserably to retain them in the Irish healthcare system. We are not paying them enough, the workload is too great and the hours are too long. Until the government and health managers address this, we will be forever hearing about overcrowding, nurse shortages and bed closures.

“The reality is that we have 200 beds closed in Dublin at the moment because we simply can’t recruit nurses. That is the situation in Dublin at the moment and this will be added to when we have 1,500 less nurses coming on stream next year,” Mr Doran said.

A Department of Health spokesperson said the lack of graduates in 2005 will only impact on the system for a short period (from spring 2006 to early autumn 2006) and will be substantially improved by the fact that 1,500 nursing students will be doing their rostered year, as part of the nursing workforce, during this period, as well as recruitment from abroad.

She said there had been a 70% increase in the number of nurse training places from 968 in 1998 to 1,640 from 2002; that financial supports were available for nurses undertaking part-time degrees, specialist courses and those wishing to return to nursing.

Fine Gael’s Olivia Mitchell said the Government must stop contradicting facts and figures produced by the INO and tackle the problem now, before it’s too late.

“This ostrich-type attitude is typical of the Government attitude to impending crises and is precisely the way it has acted when also dealing with the working time directive for junior doctors,” Ms Mitchell said.