Year-long HSE campaign fails to recruit new nurses for Dingle Hospital
A year after starting a campaign to recruit five additional nurses for the West Kerry Community Hospital in Dingle, the HSE has failed to fill the vacancies because nurses would rather emigrate than accept the pay that’s on offer.
Following protracted negotiations with the nurses’ INMO trade union, the HSE agreed last February to put off the planned opening of eight new beds in the hospital until five additional nurses were hired to provide adequate staffing for the expanded services.
The campaign to recruit those nurses was expected to begin immediately last February and by last May the HSE was able to tell The Kerryman that “recruitment is ongoing and is going well”. Last August the HSE said: “We have advertised locally and nationally and an extensive recruitment campaign is underway, but it is challenging”.
Last week the HSE said the recruitment campaign is “currently in progress”.
“Cork Kerry Community Healthcare has placed advertisements in several local print outlets, as well as on Radio Kerry. We also have an ongoing campaign with jobs.ie.” a spokesperson said.
The closing date for applications in the most recent round of jobs advertising was last Friday, and that may yet prove successful. However, in the meantime West Kerry Community Hospital is operating below its full capacity and the eight additional hospital beds that are desperately needed for the care of elderly patients remain unavailable.
“We won’t be opening new services until staff are recruited,” INMO Industrial Relations Officer Mary Power told The Kerryman this week, adding: “If pay and conditions were attractive they would get the nurses, but that’s one thing the HSE hasn’t done.”
“The HSE must provide appropriate pay and conditions of service to attract nurses back to Ireland,” she said. “We’re training 13,000 – 15,000 nurses a year and most of them are not staying because of the pay and conditions here.”