THE IRISH NURSES’ Organisation has described as “outrageous” a proposal that student nurses be required to work on hospital wards without being paid.

Liam Doran of the INO said on RTE Radio1′s Morning Ireland that asking the student nurses to work for 36 weeks on wards without pay was “exploitation of frontline workers”.

The Government has decided to gradually eliminate wages for student nurses for the nine months they work on hospital wards as part of their four-year degree. They currently receive 80 per cent of a fully qualified nurse’s salary for the placement. The payment will be totally gone by 2015 which means that student nurses starting their degree next year will be the first to receive no salary at all for the work, reports today’s Irish Times.

This is how the payment to student nurses will be cut:

• Reduced to 60 per cent of a qualified nurse’s salary in 2012;
• To 50 per cent in 2013;
• To 40 per cent in 2014;
• Abolished entirely in 2015.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said that the payment to trainee nurses was “unique” to Ireland among European countries. Liam Doran said today that while he was not talking about industrial action, the INO would campaign against the cut.