NURSES ‘RELYING ON FOOD BANKS’
Cost-of-living crisis means frontline staff are struggling to support their families
NURSES are being forced to turn to food banks due to the spiralling cost of living, a union conference has heard.
With inflation at a 40-year high, nurses and midwives want a nationwide rent freeze and for travel expenses to be paid to help with fuel costs.
Delegate Mick Schnackenberg told the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation annual conference yesterday that he was aware of at least six nurses in Tullamore, Co. Offaly, who are receiving assistance from food banks.
He pleaded at the conference – attended by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly – that frontline workers and their families ‘must not be left to the ravages of inflation’. He said many young nurses are on poor wages, and are facing soaring rents and rising fuel bills, while living in remote areas and are struggling to support their families.
Mr Schnackenberg went on: ‘We don’t have the option to work from home. I have colleagues who are forced to take leave as they cannot afford to buy food to make their kids’ lunch for school
and also pay to travel to work and pay outrageous car parking fees. It is 2022, nurses and midwives have proved our worth. Our members... and their families, must not be left to the ravages of inflation.’
Addressing the conference yesterday, Minister Donnelly said the Covid-19 pandemic payment of €1,000 is a small recognition and he wants it paid out immediately.
He acknowledged that delegates had worked long hours, in stressful situations, often in PPE, and that much of the success of the vaccination programme was down to nurses.
‘None of this has been easy. A number of healthcare workers lost their lives to Covid,’ he said.
‘Many of you, or your colleagues, became sick. You worked longer hours, under more stressful conditions. You made personal sacrifices. Ireland’s healthcare workers have represented the very best of our nation.’
At the final day of the conference in Sligo, the INMO passed a motion calling for measures to assist those in the profession in the face of ‘huge uncertainty and spiraling costs of living’.
Mr Donnelly was told by INMO president Karen McGowan that the additional costs associated with the profession are on the rise. She said: ‘There is a significant cost when you have to drive to and from work for every shift. We are driving lengthy distances because it is becoming impossible to afford a home to buy or rent near our places of work.’
She added that safety concerns are also forcing nurses to fork out on additional transport costs.
Ms McGowan said: ‘Young nurses and midwives who are starting out on no wages, or the first point of the scales, are telling us they are forced to factor in taxi costs because of poor public transport services if they start or finish a shift late at night, because they don’t feel it is safe to walk home alone. The costs associated with getting to work are not just hitting our pockets, they are hitting us mentally too.
‘Nurses caring for patients in their own homes and in the community predominantly drive to and from visits in personal vehicles, with some driving hundreds of kilometres per week. As the cost of living rises, these dedicated staff members should not be left in financial difficulties as a result of doing their jobs.’
The motion, which was passed unanimously, noted that the health service continues to face a retention issue when it comes to the nursing and midwifery workforce. It called for the Government to implement a nationwide rent freeze, in order to make housing more affordable for nurses and midwives and allow them to live near their places of work, and to factor in the net cost of nurses and midwives getting to work, such as travel expenses.
The union also wants the Government to fully implement all agreements under Building Momentum and the Nurses Dispute 2019, and to engage with the ICTU Public Service Committee without delay. The motion also called for a ‘meaningful and wellresourced’ Bring Them Home campaign in order to tackle recruitment and retention issues.
Mr Donnelly said that the rollout of the Enhanced Nursing and Midwifery Practice contract has progressed to an advanced stage, and that ‘significant engagement’ is under way under the sectoral bargaining process in this year’s pay agreement.