Nursing vacancies won’t be filled for a year

HSE asks international recruitersto fill 88 posts as operations delayed

A severe shortage of theatre and critical care nurses will not be alleviated for more than a year at best, health chiefs have admitted.

The HSE has turned to international recruiters to fill 88 vacancies that are delaying operations and forcing the closure of intensive care beds.

But because of the complications involved in finding and interviewing candidates abroad and awaiting their registration and relocation to Ireland, the positions will remain empty for at least the next 15 months.

“The new recruits won’t be in place until spring 2015 at the earliest,” the HSE said, blaming a “worldwide shortage of nurses with this specialist experience”.

However, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said lack of forward planning by the HSE was the underlying problem.

Liam Doran, the INMO general secretary, said: “What’s being attempted now is a Band-Aid. The only way we will solve this problem is to grow our own and retain our own.

“Training places in these specialist areas have dried up in the last three or four years. There are around 25 places at the moment when there were 40-45 before.

“Because of the cuts to nursing posts generally, hospitals are also in a position where they say, ‘we can’t release people to do training because we won’t be allowed replace them’.

“The result is all the acute hospitals are short of specialist theatre nurses, intensive care nurses and coronary care nurses. It’s not just one or two vacancies; there are hospitals with 12 vacancies.”

The current recruitment drive aims to fill 54 theatre nurse posts and 34 critical care posts in acute hospitals around the country.

Recruitment is being outsourced and an invitation to tender for the task was issued by the HSE before Christmas. The hope is to fill the posts in 2015, but a four-year contract is on offer to the recruiter.

“Despite numerous advertising campaigns, the HSE has been unable to fill a number of critical nursing posts in particular specialist areas which is having a serious impact on service provision,” the HSE said.

“If additional nurses with this specialist experience can be recruited, theatre sessions nationally could be increased and additional ICU beds opened.”

Some of the recruits are expected to be Irish nurses working abroad, but Mr Doran said the financial packages would not be an incentive. “Our pay rates here do not compare with the pay rates in the US where in many locations ICU nurses and coronary care nurses are very well paid. All you get back here for having those additional qualifications is a specialist allowance of €2,791.”

The HSE said 52 nurses were undertaking postgraduate critical care education in 2013/14 and it was up to the third-level education providers to offer more places. But the programmes are a mix of classes and clinical practice so cooperation between the hospitals and colleges is essential.

The HSE said it would continue to try to find nurses in Ireland using normal recruitment procedures.