Student nurses going unpaid despite brutal 12-hour shif ts on the frontline

STUDENT nurses are working 12hour days on the frontline without pay or training, their union has said.

Leah Byrne, a 20-year-old in her second year studying at UCD, said her ‘training’ placement at an acute hospital had caused her to lose her weekend job at a nursing home, due to fears she could pass the coronavirus onto vulnerable patients.

She said she now has no income, but continues to work 12-hour days in a hospital with no pay, which requires a 90-minute commute from Wexford each way.

In a post on social media, Ms Byrne said: ‘Student nurse, 12-hour days, no pay, lost my accommodation, lost my job in a nursing home at weekends due to cross-contamination of healthcare-setting issues.

‘No income and now commuting 1.5 hours each way to help on the frontline for not one cent.’

She said the situation would last at least ten weeks, as her placement ran for eight weeks, and she has to isolate herself for a further two weeks before she can return to her weekend work. ‘We need to be heard,’ she added. Michael Pidgeon, spokesman for the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, said the INMO had asked the HSE for students to be paid at least the salary of a care assistant.

He said their work meant they were being exposed to the same risk of contracting Covid-19 as all other healthcare workers.

‘No-one should be doing that without getting paid,’ he said.

Mr Pidgeon also said that the student placements were intended to give trainee nurses supervised experience and training in the field. However, he said that due to the current crisis, hospitals were not able to provide the usual training. For that reason, many colleges had cancelled the placements, but UCD and a number of others had not.

Mr Pidgeon said the INMO had called for national guidance on placements for students, which

‘Strange not to try to employ them’

would provide certainty to colleges and trainees. He also said students like Ms Byrne who had lost their paid jobs could apply for the Coronavirus Unemployment Payment.

However, Mr Pidgeon said this would be a missed opportunity for the health service.

‘There is a wider issue. There is a bank of motivated people, who are willing to work in the health service, who have a degree of training and skill,’ he explained.

‘It would be strange for us not to seek to employ them… From a system-wide perspective, we should be doing more to help trainees,’ he added.

Mr Pidgeon also said that the INMO was speaking to HSE management on a daily basis, on a range of issues including equipment and health, to ensure its members were protected.

Meanwhile, Professor John Crown, a consultant oncologist at St Vincent’s Hospital on Dublin, took to Twitter to talk about the situation regarding student nurses. He wrote: ‘Conflict of interest to declare – my daughter is a student nurse.

‘Unfair that university students are all sent home for their protection EXCEPT student nurses who are deployed to hospitals to work for free.’

Cancer campaigner Vicky Phelan replied to him: ‘Can the INMO not intervene here with the Government to ensure that these student nurses are paid? They are putting themselves at risk and deserve to be remunerated.’

Solidarity-People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy responded to Ms Byrne’s post on social media, saying: ‘Pay student nurses now!’

And Mick Barry, Solidarity-People Before Profit TD for Cork North Central, wrote: ‘Student nurses go into hospitals nationwide today to begin 6 wks training followed by two wks self-isolation.

‘They will give up part-time jobs in nursing homes etc for health and safety reasons. Most will only receive a travel allowance. Pay our student nurses!’

Labour’s health spokesman, Alan Kelly TD, added: ‘Any fair-minded person would say that it is completely unacceptable for the times that we are in that student nurses are not being paid.’