Hospital wards ‘are being used to house children in care’

Hospital wards are being used to house children at risk who are taken into care when Tusla is unable to find alternative safe lodgings in the community, the annual delegate conference of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation will hear today.

Nurses who are highlighting the practice will call on conference to inform the HSE of this “frequent occurrence” and the “negative impact” it has on a child requiring a place of safety.

Jarlath Keady, who is proposing the motion, will urge conference to recognise the challenges it presents when children who are not ill, and who often display “extreme challenging behaviour”, are placed in a children’s ward in an acute hospital setting.

Mr Keady, of the INMO Ballinasloe branch, described the practice as “commonplace”.

“There have been three occurrences in six months in our unit and we are a rural unit. The child could be in there 48 hours plus before any accommodation was found.

“I don’t believe that’s a good enough situation for any nurse in any unit to be in, nor for any other child who’s on the ward,” Mr Keady said.

“They are on that ward and they have no medical ailments, they are only there for their safety.”

Mr Keady said it was “very unsettling to see a child being specialled [designated as requiring one-to-one care] be it by a nurse, a health care assistant and security guard and/or the gardaí, if circumstances require them to be there”.

The situation was not confined to the weekends, when placing children in care can be more problematic. Recently, one child was placed on the ward from Wednesday to Friday.

It’s not ideal for the child that needs to be housed, it’s not ideal for children on the ward being treated for illness, and it’s not ideal for the nursing staff.

He said the HSE should be made “fully aware of it because Tusla is answerable to the HSE”.

“Basically I want conference to go back to the HSE and for Tusla to get its house in order so that there is a place available to house a child 24/7 or 365 days of the year, be it short term foster care or a safe house, but not an acute hospital setting,” Mr Keady said.

While “nobody is going to turn a child away”, hospitals were not appropriate accommodation.

Up to 350 delegates are attending the centenary annual conference in Trim, Co Meath, which got underway yesterday, and where the theme is ‘Reflecting on the Past, Navigating the Present, Modelling for the Future.’

Simon Harris, the health minister, is due to attend tomorrow.

A separate motion today will urge the HSE, as the biggest employer in the country, to improve on its approach to waste management against a backdrop of concern about the growing environmental impact of pollutants, particularly plastics, on human health.

Members of the INMO Letterkenny branch will call on the HSE to apply a consistent waste segregation, recycle and disposal programme nationwide, to include “robust recycle facilities” in every HSE work area.

They say the HSE needs a system to manage large volumes of “currently unrecylable packaging” that comes with medical and allied products, to ensure they do not enter general landfill sites.