Taoiseach: 'Exploitation' of student nurses unacceptable and should be reported

The Government has come under mounting pressure in the Dáil to pay student nurses who have "held the hands of dying Covid patients".  File picture

Any "abuse" or "exploitation" of student nurses is unacceptable and should be reported, the Taoiseach has said.

The Government has come under mounting pressure in the Dáil to pay student nurses who have "held the hands of dying Covid patients".

However, Micheál Martin said student nurses and midwives should never be asked to treat Covid patients and those instances should be investigated.

"That is an abuse. No hospital and no director of nursing should enable that to take place, particularly in the second wave of Covid, which did not have the same impact as the first wave on hospitalisations or ICU occupancy," Mr Martin said.

But both Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and Solidarity-PBP TD Richard Boyd-Barrett suggested that student nurses regularly carry out duties including feeding, dressing and caring for patients, and the examples they raised in the Dáil were not isolated.

Ms McDonald pointed to the testimonies of student nurses who do "the hardest work" on wards.

'13-hour days'

"They treat the sick and injured, often in the most difficult circumstances in understaffed and overcrowded hospitals. They are often on their feet for 13-hour days, rushing around performing their tasks with professionalism and compassion," she said.

Ms McDonald said that over the last eight months, student nurses and midwives have worked incredibly hard in the battle against Covid-19 and warned that "the Taoiseach should remember that these students have stepped into the breach and it was the Government that asked them to do so".

The Taoiseach said the Government is "not refusing to pay anybody" and a review of allowances will be finalised by the end of this month and "will result in higher allowances for student nurses".

He said: "We have applied the pandemic unemployment payment to student nurses who cannot work part-time in other workplaces because of the fear of cross-contamination. 

"We have also provided other financial supports to meet additional costs as a result of working in a Covid environment," he told the Dáil.