STUDENT NURSES are to be required to work on hospital wards without pay under the latest cutback in health spending.
Until now students have received 80 per cent of a full salary during their nine-month placements on hospital wards, which form part of their four-year degree programme.
In a move which has been greeted with “outrage” by the nurses’ union, the Government has decided to phase out the payment, eliminating it by 2015.
The decision means that the 1,500-plus students who will begin their training programme next year will not receive any payment for their rostered placement in public hospitals towards the end of their course.
As part of cutbacks to be put in place by the Department of Health, several thousand students in training will also see payments for their placement period significantly reduced.
The move forms part of the Government decision, announced in its four-year plan for economic recovery, to cut entry-level salaries in the public service by 10 per cent.
The Department of Health confirmed yesterday that from next year the payment level for students will be reduced to 76 per cent of the minimum point on the staff nurse scale.
It said further cuts would be made in the payment progressively in subsequent years. The payment rate would be reduced to 60 per cent of a regular nurse’s salary in 2012, to 50 per cent in 2013 and to 40 per cent in 2014.
At that point the department plans to abolish the payment altogether.
A spokesman for the department said yesterday that the move to cut the payments was on foot of a Government decision.
He said the current level of payments for students working on placement in hospitals was unique in European countries.
However, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said last night it would fight the planned cuts.
The union’s deputy general secretary David Hughes said it was shocked by the decision and it was “an absolute outrage” to expect anybody who was working 12-hour shifts in hospitals to do so without receiving any payment.
Mr Hughes said the decision was an attack on students and it represented “a move towards gross exploitation”.