Sir, – The lack of joined-up thinking among the principals in the never-ending drama that is the health system in this country never ceases to amaze.
Not a week passes without an outcry regarding the old, infirm, ill and vulnerable being left for inordinate lengths of time on trolleys in overcrowded emergency departments. This is usually followed by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) nursing union highlighting the shortage of nurses to care for these people. This is then usually followed by the Minister for Health plugging all the things he is doing to get nurses back into the Irish health system, including offering a variety of incentives to nurses abroad to come and work within the Irish health system.
I am a qualified nurse with over five years of post-qualification experience in intensive-care nursing who went on to the inactive register with An Bord Altranais 12 years ago.
In those 12 years I have never once been contacted by An Bord Altranais, the INMO or any of the hospitals I had previously worked with to see if I would be interested in returning to work within the nursing sector.
Most if not all of the return-to-nursing courses offered by the major teaching hospitals have been cancelled over the last few years so the opportunity to return to practice after an extended period of absence is not there.
How can the Minister and the hospitals justify focusing solely on recruiting nurses outside of the country when there is a core group already resident in the country that no-one has seen fit to tap into? – Yours, etc,
GERALDINE
BRASSINGTON,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.