Payback time for nurses, doctors and teachers

THE new pay deal for nurses may be complex and unpopular in some quarters while its success as a carrot to keep more nurses at home remains to be seen. Yet the bargain struck by the Labour Court so early in the strike reflects the power of the public service unions and how the onus is firmly on the State when it comes to retaining nurses in the country that has educated them for free.

There’s no mystique about nurses’ reasons for emigrating.

Like doctors who have grown weary of illegal 24-hour shifts and soaring stress levels, nurses are increasingly voting with their feet, striking out for hospitals in the US, Canada and Australia where English is spoken, their qualifications are held in high esteem and they can depend on tolerable working conditions.

In their adopted homes they might not even be homesick, finding their feet in the company of so many other Irish medical staff.

Good for them, you might say; we are all entitled to build the best lives we can, particularly after qualifying. Except the vacuum created by the loss of so many medically trained staff from the country is not comparable to the exodus of other professions or tradespeople. O UR crippled health service is the most tangible result, as is our reliance on foreign-trained medical personnel and, in the case of nurses, eye-wateringly expensive agency staff. It’s part of the vicious cycle in the health service whereby poor conditions and hospital chaos encourage staff to emigrate, which in turn generates even greater staff shortages and makes it even less feasible for nursing or medical graduates to remain here.

The nurses’ unions highlight the first part of the cycle but not the role that departing staff play in the deterioration of the health service. The same attitude of entitlement can be seen in the failed action of the teachers’ union in the European Court of Justice about the two-tier pay scale.

Much to the annoyance of INTO, the court did not find the pay scale discriminatory – a ruling that severely knocks back their claims about younger teachers being shortchanged. Undeterred, the union is set on eventual pay restoration with the possibility of industrial action. Pay and conditions top the agenda of the army of nurses we churn out year after year, at considerable taxpayer expense. The health service they leave behind when they emigrate, may be broken but they wash their hands of it, even though they have trained in it and their elderly parents and other loved ones may wholly rely on it for their care.

Do the doctors and nurses who flock to Sydney or Perth flinch at the idea of foreign hospitals with state-of-the-art facilities and family-friendly rosters – rather than crumbling Irish hospitals – being enriched by the Irish State?

What is the point of the country educating doctors for free if they pack their bags as soon as they have letters after their name? It makes no sense not to wrestle some pay back from the investment, particularly when we suffer from such staff shortages. N EVERTHELESS, it’s like you’re promoting human slavery if you suggest that nurses and doctors – or indeed any Irish– trained person whose skills are in short supply at home – work here for a few years after graduation. Granted there may be EU laws against mandatory terms of employment but exceptions can always be made. After all, many firms in the private sector expect staff whose higher education and skills they have paid for to remain on the staff for a certain time period in order to reap the benefit of their training.

If young graduates are in a great rush to emigrate, they might perhaps be released from their obligations at home once their sponsoring hospital pays compensation to the Exchequer.

Our talented nurses and doctors are in demand all over the world. Lucky them. But entitlement is a two-way street and it’s not just about their expectation of the good life. The country that footed the bill for their education is also entitled to expect something back.