Nurses union to warn of staff burnout and criticise Covid vaccine rollout

Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha arriving at Leinster House today before reporting to the Oireachtas Health Committee. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Healthcare workers are experiencing burn out and should be additionally compensated for their work in the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Oireachtas Health Committee will meet to hear from organisations representing frontline healthcare workers.

The committee will be told on Tuesday that 91% of nurses and midwives described feeling mentally exhausted when off duty since the pandemic commenced and more than 90% of nurses and midwives reported being mentally exhausted.

"Haphazard manner"

INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha will tell the committee that the rollout of vaccines in healthcare had been done "without clear guidance or regional prioritisation".

"Many frontline nurses working in Covid wards and ICUs still have not received the first dose yet non-frontline staff received the vaccination. 

"The rollout commenced in a haphazard manner, not focused on the locations or workplaces with the highest infections or geographically bordering areas with high community infection. Put simply, the vaccines' initial distribution seemed to be based on the HSE's administrative areas, rather than by where the virus was most prevalent."

The union will tell the committee that members should be compensated for their roles in the pandemic, which is approaching its second year in Ireland.

Healthcare workers in Northern Ireland and Scotland are set to receive a once-off £500 bonus for their work so far. In France, they are to be awarded a €1,500 bonus for their work.

The INMO will also tell the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health that decisions on worker safety have had “insufficient priority” since the start of the pandemic. The union will say that healthcare workers’ safety has been at risk as a result, while students have been left with a bad experience of the Irish health service.

The INMO submission will also call for improved social distancing in hospitals, mental health supports for the frontline, childcare provision, and mandatory health and safety inspections in workplaces with clusters or outbreaks of Covid.

Long standing issues

Professor Robert Landers of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association will tell the committee that shortages in consultant numbers has led to a situation where "excessive workloads are being carried by understaffed medical and surgical teams to the detriment of patients”.

"This has not only meant the curtailment of services to patients, but it has necessitated doctors working additional hours on top of their full week and already onerous on-call rosters at night and weekends.

"There is a high risk that when the pandemic eases there will be increased mental health issues impacting on our health staff. Returning to the stressful overstretched ‘business as usual’ model is not an option if we are to avoid an even worse workforce crisis than was the case pre-Covid."

Anthony Owens, Director of Industrial Relations at the Irish Medical Organisation will tell the committee that many of the issues in health "existed long before the pandemic struck".

"What is deplorable, is that it is now almost one year since the first case of Covid 19 was diagnosed in Ireland and yet no substantial and systemic action has been taken to date to address the crisis in recruitment and retention of medical expertise across our health system,

"As a consequence, our waiting lists have grown and stress and burnout is prevalent among the medical workforce."