This thread has gone in so many directions that I am finding it difficult to keep up. Hospital management, the government, the unions, the administration staff, Sick Leave, etc have been fingered for blame.
The fact is our hospital system is short of nurses because the rewards of even working in the UK ailing hospital system are infinitely more inviting than here. Our younger nursing people are better educated than nurses who came up through the hospital system. They are not fools. They can make more money working abroad. They can have nursing courses free of charge that cost an arm and a leg here. They have better working conditions. Even the UK government gives them generous allowances towards their accommodation. A nurse seeking far bigger money than in these parts of europe can leg it to the Middle East for a few years and on return can pay cash for a house instead of begging for a mortgage. Sometimes I wonder why any young nurse would continue to work here.
Even one poster suggested that Liam Doran is the cause of all that is not good in our system. Newsflash! Liam Doran is paid to represent nurses and midwives through his trade union, he is not the conscience of the HSE. Liam Doran after a precarious start in the INMO (or whatever it was previously called) has become a figure that many other trade unionists would want representing them now. I wonder how long more the INMO will be able to keep him. I wish he was representing me. I know Purple will have something to say on this. Incidentally, Purple with his anti trades union views has probably become the greatest recruiting agent for any trades union.
Sick Leave and hospitals:- Nurses, Doctors, Care Assistants, Attendants, Porters, Ward Clerks etc are more open to infection than most of us posting here. I hope nobody contributing here believes that that dispensers at the doors of hospitals play a huge part in the prevention of infections. The dispensers look good, but that is about all. Nurses in their hourly lives would be open to more infections than most. If you have problems taking this in then have a look at the MRSA test alone conducted on all patients on admission. And that is only the start. Add in shortage of staff, night duty, surgery, wound cleaning, etc and there is a just reason for more sick leave. How many medical staff are physically threatened every weekend in Accident & Emergency? Don't forget hospital enforced sick leave either; if it is considered that a nurse with some infectuous illnesses would be a threat to patient care then sick leave is imposed on the nurse.
Somebody mentioned PPARS. I think we discussed this to death in several previous threads.
Nearly Forgot:- I think it was Delboy who informed us that privatisation of our hospital system is not on the cards. I brought this to the attention of several hospital staff grades yesterday and I won't bore you other than to say it was treated with guffaws (no disrespect to Delboy).
