St Vincent's Hospital at Elm Park in Dublin has 65 nursing vacancies and has had to close four of its 10 operating theatres, its chief executive confirmed yesterday. The hospital has recruited staff from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to fill vacancies from qualified nurses "and we will be going back there and to the Philippines", Mr Nicholas Jermyn said.
He added that while the hospital was affected by staff shortages, it was also the case that it had never had all 10 theatres working all the time. It has dealt with the shortages by "condensing" its work into six theatres which are open during the day, although it sometimes opens another two theatres as well.
The hospital has minimised disruption to elective (non-urgent) surgery by keeping its theatres open throughout the night, he said. This means theatre staff are in the hospital to handle any emergencies which arise and avoids having to waken staff and call them in from home.
Calling in staff from home during the night can disrupt elective surgery if they are rostered to work on such surgery the next day. However, with theatre staff on duty in the hospital through the night, those who are rostered for daytime work need not be called in and the disruption to elective surgery is minimised.
Mr Jermyn said this was possible only with the co-operation of nurses, doctors, porters, theatre attendants and cleaners. As a result of their efforts, he said, "we are putting more through our theatres that are open than we ever put through when they were all open."
Meanwhile, recently published research on intensive care suggests that shortages of nurses in intensive care units could have a dramatic effect on the health services. The three-year study at a Scottish hospital found that increasing the workload of intensive care nurses over the recommended levels worsened patients' chances of living.
A report on the research was published in a recent edition of the Lancet. The finding suggests that hospitals which cannot get sufficient ICU nurses will have little option but to reduce the number of surgical procedures performed so as to reduce the workload on staff.
The Children's Hospital, Temple Street, Dublin said yesterday that it has experienced difficulties in recruiting staff but has not had to reduce services. The hospital has the State's biggest children's casualty unit.
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