Exhausted nurses bringing sleeping bags in their cars to nap after shifts

INMO midwives section chair Lynda Moore told the conference: “Each of us knows people going home from night duty who have crashed their cars, who’ve had quite a serious accident.”

Nurses and midwives are so tired after working in short-staffed units that some are even bringing sleeping bags in their cars so they can nap on the way home.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s conference in Killarney has been told of fatal crashes happening because staff are battling extreme tiredness after working long shifts.

The union's president told Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, who attended the conference on Friday: "Minister, we work long shifts, compounded by hours of commuting and the risks to exhausted nurses/midwives driving long distances home after their shifts, which has tragically been proven catastrophic for some of our members over the years."

Delegates pointed out that the danger of tiredness is being compounded by the long drives nurses face after their shifts because they cannot afford to live close to the hospitals. Those who do are, the conference heard, having to spend up to 80% of their earnings on rent particularly if working in hospitals in the likes of Dublin or Cork.

Under questioning, Stephen Donnelly said hospitals have confirmed to him that they are examining the possibility of building staff accommodation. He said, in particular, those hospitals which are struggling with recruitment are evaluating properties where accommodation could be located.

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INMO midwives section chair Lynda Moore told the conference: “Each of us knows people going home from night duty who have crashed their cars, who’ve had quite a serious accident.” She added that most were single-car crashes.

Ms Moore, a midwife on the Domino Scheme at Cork University Maternity Hospital, said in her experience this does not only affect midwives driving long distances between work and home.

“They all have a sleeping bag in their cars,” she said.

They set their alarm on their phone for half an hour's sleep. So they pull into the side of the road and they make it look casual — they don’t want to make it look obvious they are having a sleep at the side of the road.

All units are facing a staffing crisis, she said. “Our labour ward would be two to four midwives short practically every shift,” she said.

Midwives can then find it difficult to take a break and make time to eat. “Midwives are going off (shift) stressed, hungry, headachy, starving in some cases, feeling sick in some cases,” she said.

“Sometimes midwives go home and you stuff your face with food because you are so hungry, and others just go straight to sleep because they are so tired — and they are the ones who are losing weight or lacking nutrition.” 

"We are fortunate though in Cork that it is our normal practice that it is one midwife per woman in labour, we have on the whole maintained that."