'After surviving this, they can survive anything' - Cork-based nurses celebrate graduations

General Nursing interns helped plug critical staffing gaps as healthcare workers fell ill taking care of Covid-19 patients, and then they had to work through the HSE cyber-attack

(Left to right) General Nursing interns Jennifer O'Connell, Sligo, Caroline Murphy, Millstreet and Sinead O'Sullivan, Glengarriff, who graduated at Cork University Hospital. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

We did it to put our patients first - that was the message from new nurses who've been praised by the Taoiseach for bolstering the frontline during the Covid-19 crisis.

Micheál Martin sent a special message of thanks to the class of general nursing interns who emerged as graduate staff nurses following a ‘blessing of the hands’ ceremony at Cork University Hospital (CUH) yesterday.