Staff levels ‘put patients at risk’

UP to 40 elderly patients are left in the care of a single nurse in some elderly care units because of staffing shortages, delegates at the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) AGM heard yesterday.

Derek Reilly, a member of the Kildare branch of the INO, said this was in marked contrast to patient/nurse ratios in acute hospitals where at least three nurses are present overnight for a similar number of patients.

“It makes no sense when patients are transferred out of acute hospitals into elderly care settings, often with the same level of dependency, that there is just one nurse for between 30-40 patients,” he said.