A total of 1,315 nursing posts were vacant in health board and voluntary hospitals at the end of January, according to a report published yesterday.
Based on a survey carried out by the Health Service Employers' Agency (HSEA), the report documents nursing shortages in the Republic and the efforts being made to fill vacant posts through overseas recruitment.
The report said many of the 1,315 vacancies were covered by agency nurses and staff overtime. A total of 423 agency nurses were employed every day during January, and some 3,298 hours' overtime was worked by nurses each day in January. This equates with the work of 592 full-time nurses, the report said.
When account is taken of the services of agency nurses and overtime, the net vacancy situation stands at 300 posts.
Over 50 employers participated in the survey, and reported that 4,226 nurses were recruited in the year ending January 31st, 2001. Some 2,954 nurses resigned or retired during the period.
Despite the high numbers of nurses resigning or retiring, there was a net increase of 1,272 nurses in the system over the past year. "An element of the large increase in recruitment arises from the successful attraction of nurses from abroad by individual employers to live and work in Ireland," the report said.
"Employers reported that in the year ending 31/1/2001, a total of 589 nurses were recruited from abroad, of which 337 were in the voluntary hospital sector, 151 in the learning disability sector and 101 in the health board sector.
"It was reported that contractual arrangements had been made with significant numbers of additional nurses who had not commenced work on 31/1/ 2001 and are, thus, outside the scope of the current survey."
Mr Martin McDonald, project manager, HSEA, said that when the results were compared with a similar survey conducted last November, the situation had improved. "The current situation shows a fall of 5 per cent in the number of vacancies nationally," he said.
"The principal area of difficulty remains the Dublin area, with a majority of employers outside Dublin indicating that no vacancies exist," he added.
Most nursing vacancies were found in the Northern Area Health Board (Eastern Region) which had over 240 posts vacant at the end of January. The Midland, Southern and Mid-Western Health Boards reported no vacancies.
A team from the Western Health Board recently attended a FAS-organised Jobs Ireland recruitment fair in New York. Some 250 people attending the fair expressed interest in working with the board as occupational therapists, specialist nurses and counsellors.
The studio graphic, because of space restrictions, shows the main voluntary hospitals only.
The Hospital Watch column and new Checkup column are available on The Irish Times website at: www.ireland.com/special/hospital/