Cork 'particularly affected' by nursing jobs crisis caused by recruitment embargo

NURSES are being forced to commute long distances due to the recruitment embargo, which means they can’t take up jobs closer to home even after successfully interviewing.

Laois Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley raised the issue in the Dáil on Thursday, saying that people are languishing on panels for hospitals that urgently need staff, but “the positions are being delayed due to the nursing recruitment embargo, with no start date in sight”.

“I am aware of a nurse in Co Laois who is travelling to work a 12-hour shift in Cork every day,” he said.

INMO assistant director of industrial relations Colm Porter told The Echo that Cork is “particularly affected” by the issue.

The nurse Mr Stanley had referred to, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Echo she trained in Cork and had been working there for five years, but that her life was in Laois, so she spent most of her time there.

Drive

She explained that she would have to get up 5.30am, drive for two hours, and work a 12-hour shift or longer, and would work seven days in a row just to get three days off together.

“I had a place in Cork but I wasn’t happy there. I couldn’t sleep because the people I worked with kept me awake when I was doing night shifts and rent was €600 a month plus bills.”

She interviewed for positions closer to Laois and was told she would be placed on a panel until the embargo was lifted and, at the end of last month she had to make the decision to leave her role in Cork and take up agency work closer to home, explaining “I just couldn’t do it any longer.”

The HSE spent almost €430m on agency staff between January and August of 2023, a Freedom of Information request revealed to The Echo. Mr Stanley said: “People are doing huge round trips to get to work and back, and our frontline services are depleted. The embargo is having a huge impact.”

Junior Minister for Mental Health and Older People Mary Butler told Mr Stanley in the Dáil the embargo has been lifted for several areas of nursing.

Derogations

The INMO’s Colm Porter told The Echo that while there are derogations for staff nurses in some areas — A&Es, acute medical assessment nursing, critical care nursing, midwifery, community intervention teams — nurses in many other areas cannot be employed.

He said: “We are 100% aware of people having to move further and further away from hospitals to find accommodation — there’s a housing crisis, and Cork is particularly affected. It’s absolutely a possibility that people are on a panel, ready to go and work but they can’t be given a job yet. So even though the Government are saying the embargo is lifted for nursing, it’s only being lifted in certain circumstances.

“Everybody is in need of staff — all our members are saying that the embargo is having a profound effect: People are going on maternity leave or retiring and not being replaced, it’s putting huge pressure on the staff left.”

Nursing is a very physical job, said Mr Porter, “and it’s long: In most acute hospitals you could be working a 12 hour shift and then having to add travel on top of that”.

He said there was “no indication” as to when the embargo will be fully lifted.

“We know from previous recruitment freezes and periods of embargo that the longer it goes on, the longer it takes staffing levels to come up to where they were — let alone grow to meet all the issues like a growing population and more complex cases.”