Clinical placements in hospitals for about 2,000 student nurses are to be further suspended until February 8th, the trade union Siptu has said .
Siptu said it had been advised that clinical placements were likely to be re-introduced on a phased basis.
The Department of Health had initially suspended placements for student nurses in the first, second and third years of their courses for a fortnight until early next week due to the surge in Covid-19 cases.
The Department of Health said in mid-January that the HSE wanted to redeploy staff involving in training student nurses to front-line duties.
Siptu’s industrial organiser John McCamley said: “Over the last number of days, Siptu representatives have raised our members’ deep frustration and annoyance at the haphazard manner this process has been approached and the very real concerns held by student nurses and midwives around their education, health, well-being and financial challenges.’
“It is our understanding that students will not have to make-up the time for the first two weeks of this suspension as different processes are being put in place to facilitate this but no clarity has yet been given with respect to the additional week or any more potential additional weeks of hiatus.”
“At the meeting today, the Department of Health again reiterated that the Minister for Health will sign off on the recently published report by Professor Tom Collins and introduce a €100 clinical placement grant. As this report suggests, we would encourage the Minister to backdate this payment at a minimum.”
“Siptu will continue to argue for proper protections within the workplace for all students across all health grades and ensure that proper financial remuneration for students who carry out essential frontline duties is followed through .”
