Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My thanks to all the witnesses for the work they are doing. My thanks as well to all the staff across the entire health service. It has been a singularly challenging time during the past ten months.

I will open on the issue of messaging. I am concerned because there are several instances I have come across where people seem to be totally blasé about the issue of Covid-19. I am unsure whether we are getting the message out strongly enough. One case involved someone who went into a medical clinic without advising that he was awaiting the results of a Covid-19 test. After the medical clinic was over, he made a call saying that he had tested positive. The following day he was contacted by people from the facility. His friend picked up the telephone and handed it to the person who had identified as positive for Covid-19 because the person was driving.

People, therefore, are just not following the guidelines and it is something that we need to really work on. Maybe the witnesses might give some comments on how we could focus on getting a stronger message out there.

The second issue I want to raise is nursing staff, who have had huge challenges over the last ten months. The HSE representatives have given the figures on the number of them who are out. Over 6,000 are out due to being a close contact or actually having Covid. Can we get the figures of the people who have left the health service over the last ten months? This may have been for various reasons, including family reasons and the difficulties they now face in trying to deal with it. I have heard of quite a number of nursing staff who have resigned from the service. When people are leaving the HSE who have resigned, are they being asked to fill out a questionnaire so it can be established why they have left?

The final thing I want to ask about is people who are coming back from abroad who are qualified nurses trying to get registered with An Bord Altranais. I have one case at the moment where the person has been waiting for 16 weeks to get registered. She trained and worked in the UK, has come back, self-isolated, put in an application and 16 weeks later still has not received her registration. Can any of the witnesses deal with why it is taking four months for someone to register as a nurse here?