Psychiatric nursing crisis as retirees not replaced

THE retirement of an unprecedented number of psychiatric nurses in Kerry will have serous implications for mental health services in the county, a nurses’ union leader warned.

Cormac Williams, organiser of the Killarney and Kerry South branch of the Psychiatric Nurses’ Association (PNA), said 23 nurses who retired in the past year are not being replaced.

“This leaves a chronic shortage of nurses on the ground,” he claimed.