1,500 graduating nurses to be offered permanent jobs in bid to ease hospital overcrowding
Nurses graduating this year will benefit from measures being taken to ease overcrowding in our hospitals, with media reports suggesting they are in line for permanent job offers.
Secretary general of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) Liam Doran said he has never been as worried heading into a winter period, considering the overcrowding in hospitals.
He said: "I always try to be an optimist but I've never been as concerned going into a winter period…Overcrowding is getting worse, our staffing levels are very low, our ability to recruit is very limited, the management side and the government have not yet got the fact that they need to make recruitment and retention an absolute priority."
However, Health Minister Leo Varadkar insisted there was a plan in place to alleviate overcrowding in hospital emergency departments (ED).
After meeting ED nurses yesterday, Leo Varadkar said the most important thing to do was to implement his €100m plan to alleviate overcrowding.
It includes the opening of 300 more hospital beds from November and extending the range of home care packages to help older people exit acute hospitals more quickly.
A report in the Irish Independent today says an internal HSE memo was sent to managers across the country giving them the go-ahead to offer permanent, pensionable jobs to this year's 1,500 nursing graduates.
It comes as the executive of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation sits down to consider balloting members on industrial action over the crisis. The INMO is demanding 1,000 extra beds at least to alleviate the pressure.
General Secretary Liam Doran acknowledges that recruitment and bed capacity were key factors to solving overcrowding, but also called for a reversal of "foolhardy" policies of recent years which saw 1,000 beds taken out of the system.
