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THE HEALTH MINISTER has said that the HSE is looking into acquiring “hospital-linked” accommodation for overseas healthcare staff and those who are having to travel long distances for work.
Stephen Donnelly told reporters today that he is speaking with hospital management in Galway and other locations about setting up “bespoke, locally based” accommodation for staff who are recruited to Ireland from overseas in particular.
The minister pointed to a similar hospital system in the 1970s, when specific accommodation was provided to healthcare staff.
It comes after nurses arriving in Ireland from overseas have faced issues with finding accommodation during their recruitment process.
The Journal reported last month that 25 migrant nurses recruited by a Dublin hospital were told to leave the temporary accommodation that was supposed to be guaranteed to them for six weeks, just days after their arrival.
A nurse who left Delhi to come to Ireland to work for the HSE in Cork told The Journal that she was not fully reimbursed for her flight and registration fees, and that she was still owed roughly €1000. She also had to wait for three months to start working here, which left her in a bad financial position.
Due to difficulties finding housing, her family have been unable to join her, and because of her working hours and the time difference, she rarely gets to call her five- and two-year-old children.
Speaking to press at the Irish Nurses and Midwives’ Organisation’s (INMO) annual conference in Killarney today, the Minister said that a plan for “hospital-linked” accommodation could potentially feature in the next budget.
He said that he spoke with management in Dublin’s Mater Hospital last week, and that they are currently “looking at various properties in Dublin close to the hospital that they could either buy and retrofit, or indeed start to build their own individual blocks”.
“Individual hospitals are now looking at this. I think that is very positive, the hospitals that are having the most difficulty with getting staff in because of housing are looking to prioritise this,” he added.
Donnelly said that he is having conversations within the Department of Health, with the HSE and with the estates team within the HSE to see “where we might be able to invest to start creating some of this accommodation”.
When asked if this initiative is likely to feature in this year’s budget, Donnelly said “there is no reason why it couldn’t, it would come in within the capital plan.”
“It will be up to the HSE and the hospitals to start putting in bids for this kind of accommodation, and that can be looked at as part of our normal estimates process,” the Minister said.
Earlier today Donnelly told INMO nurses that he plans to introduce 400 new undergraduate nursing places by this September.
Speaking at the union’s annual conference, Donnelly said that all hospitals are now sanctioned to hire additional staff needed in line with the safe staffing framework.
“Our task now is to hire the more than 800 additional nurses and healthcare assistants we need,” he said, but he did not give a deadline for the recruitment drive.
Responding to calls from the INMO for the safe staffing framework to be underpinned by legislation, Donnelly said he has discussed the matter with Chief Nurse Rachel Kenna and that it is under “ongoing review”.
INMO President Karen McGowan told the Minister that over 128,000 patients have been treated on trolleys or chairs while waiting on a bed in hospital.
“That is absolutely shocking and something that your Government should not be willing to stand over,” she said.
Yesterday the INMO voted in favour of holding a national ballot on industrial action if sufficient progress is not made on a safe staffing framework that is underpinned by legislation.
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What about Irish nurses, doctors and healthcare staff,
@Brian O’Grady: Ah now Brian, let’s not forget the FFG motto “sure wouldn’t they be grateful to be second class citizens in their own country”
People of Ireland should not forget at next elections
@Brian O’Grady: Irish Healthcare staff will keep emigrating as long as wages/conditions remain the same. However the biggest reason they leave home is because Ireland has not been in a position to provide them with a roof over their head and that doesn’t look like changing in the near to distant future. We will continue to try and lure African and Filipino healthcare workers who haven’t got a clue what they’re letting themselves in for as long as the housing crisis remains.
@Leo Martin: Spot on!!!!!!
@Brian O’Grady: We do nit have eniugh oif them at prescent and rely on overseas staff.
@Steve Bell: 100%
A colleague of mine with an honors degree and masters degree with 4 years experience working in a stressful hospital environment is living in a mobile home at the back of her parents house. She and her boyfriend cannot afford a mortgage. The home is cold or very hot depending on external environmen. The stove in it nearly smothered them one night. She goes Into her parents house when it’s really cold. She travels 30 minutes to work every day. Where is her story being highlighted by the MoH? Where are the breaks for young home grown people in this country?
@Ollie O’Cleirigh: and for those who ask why can’t she afford the mortgage it’s because she was paying almost 40% of her wages on rent in Dublin for 4 years. Why the he’ll aren’t we trying to keep young professionals in this country.
Recently graduated Irish nurses on the lowest pay scale and healthcare assistants should get priority if they have to travel long distances to work. We should be aiming to keep our graduates here.
@Áine G: I seem to remember decades ago ( probably shouldn’t admit to being this old) that many Irish teaching hospitals had onsite dorms for trainee nurses, as times changed these were either sold off, demolished, refurbished for office use or just allowed to fall into ruin. So now the plan is to reinvest what will possibly amount to tens, if not hundreds of millions of euros into building dorms for foreign nurses, but our native staff who are struggling to find a vacant property let alone afford the exorbitant rent prices being asked. Obviously a deposit and mortgage would be well beyond the means of a nurses salary.
If this isn’t a State sponsored recipe for creating a two tier system within nursing and deliberately causing financial friction within nursing, well I don’t know what is. It’ll lead to further unrest and demands for further, justified, pay increases.
Years ago, when nursing training was on an apprenticeship type basis, ie, training on the wards, there was always accommodation on site. It used to be called the nurses home… probably all turned into offices now.
I think that’s the problem, too many pen pushers and middle management and not enough attention paid to the people at the coalface. Progress is all very well but we seem to have lost sight of what is really important, good bedside manner, time for patients and good old fashioned cleanliness!
@Mary Walshe: St. Luke’s Old Hospital in Clonmel they closed it down as a mental health hospital it was eventually turned into plus offices instead of accommodation for the medial staff of STGH many of them have to live in Cork or Waterford and commute to work everyday and because public transport is so bad in the area they all have to run car’s. Presently the HSE are turfing our older citizens from their nursing home of St. Patricks Cashel and many of the old buildings are now offices. They were to build a new state of the art facility on the site, but the new excuse is PARKING issues stating there wouldn’t be enough space. Yet the same hospital housed 300 patients at one time and no one had problems with parking and they can’t accommodate a 60 patient unit, this is what’s happing to our people and it not a money issue as the HSE has so much money they probably couldn’t account for 80% of it.
With all due respect to the Migrants and Refugees and their plight, but this Accommodation problem has been faced by Irish Nurses for years and the Government have done nothing about it. This Government appears to trying to do everything they can to inflame Racial Tensions by discriminating against the native Irish.
@Owen G Mc Ginley: Yes, this is one of the ironies of the policy. Same with the proposed ‘hate’ legislation which will serve to enrage the locals at what they see as discrimination against them.
@Owen G Mc Ginley: 100%But the worst thing about it is they know that!
I guess donnely thinks fxck our own…make it so they emergrate just so we can import from other country’s what we’ve already trained up here amongst ourselves….and this man isn’t a traitor to the general good of the irish people?
That’s absolutely appalling, Irish citizens being totally ignored!
This should be done with companies as well. If they’re setting up here offer them a tax discount for the first couple of years if they build apartments for their staff while they’re building a factory.
Seems like every company in the world wants to locate here but if their staff can’t find a place to live they’ll have to look elsewhere. I’d say we’re very close to that point now.
@Benny Mchale: They do that already. It’s a pretty handy number for them as in you work for them, then hand back half your wages to them to rent their overpriced apartments!
We train up our nurses who then go abroad ad to replace them we recruit nurses from abroad. Anybody else feel that this might not be an ideal system?
A higher wage for Dublin based nurses would make sense too
The Twilight Zone has done it again and released Donnely upon us. This is a clear statement from this incompetent minister that Irish nurses, medical staff and the state of the healthcare are certainly not his priority or his problem. An absolute shocker of a minister and the degradation of Ireland and it’s services from all of these ministers is beyond recovery. As a nation we are letting it happen and must band together like we did for the water charges and make this change.
Would it not be cheaper to just pay your own qualified staff and you wouldn’t tobrely so heavily on migrant nurses.
Or maybe if its not cheaper just do it anyway because they are paid Pittens as it is.
Donnelly the chocolate teapot more waffle waffle
One of the main issues besides the housing issue is the fact that newly qualified nurses are not being offered decent contracts with an option to grow further in their career, that is one of the main issues they leave Ireland…and you cannot blame them
Drogheda had a Nurses home it’s now offices. It accommodated both Irish and international nurses. It’s seems strange to train our nurses for emigration while we import others. No sense in that. The accommodation could be charged at a small sum to cover all costs and therefore making it cost effective for all.
Why now ?, Why not eight years ago?. This should have been done for all nurses and doctors. Probably something to say they achieved at election time.
A person who lies over and over again has issues with their mom and dad.
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