Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister knows, there is an issue with recruitment and registration of nurses and this has to be changed quickly. The process should take just 90 days but it can, in some cases, now take up to a year. It is affecting all sectors of the health system, be it public or private, the voluntary sector, nursing homes or acute hospitals. As the Minister said earlier, there are vacancies waiting to be filled, particularly in the nursing home sector and in our acute hospitals. This is affecting the patients, their families and the delivery of services. I contend that it should not take beyond 90 days to complete the process of registering a nurse with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland.

Senator Colm Burke and I have raised this in the Seanad and the Joint Committee on Health and Children, respectively, and we are bringing the NMBI into the committee for the recess because this is a huge issue, especially in the nursing home sector. It is also having an impact on other acute services. I raised the issue with the HSE at the quarterly meeting of the committee, of which I am Chair, and it seems like little or no progress has been made since then. At the same time, I brought up the impact on the HSE of recruiting nurses from nursing homes and asked for interaction with the Nursing and Midwifery Board to reduce the inordinate delays in registration. In response to my question the HSE said the main difficulty with expediting timely applications, as reported by the NMBI, arose partly from a delay failure by the applicant and third parties to furnish the necessary documentation required to assess eligibility for registration, and partly from the overall volume.

It is all too easy to blame the applicant but I do not believe for one moment that every applicant can take such time as to create the delays we are now witnessing. I have met people from private hospitals, nursing homes and nursing organisations and I cannot comprehend it. Is it a matter of administration? Does the NMBI have the proper resources to do the job? If it does not, let us make sure it does because it is supposed to facilitate health services, not impede them. It is in nobody's interest for the current situation to continue as delays in the registration of nurses are having a domino effect. As we discussed with the Minister, in Cork University Hospital there are jobs waiting to be filled and I am told they need to be filled quickly because of capacity and vacancies and the effect on the delivery of services. The current situation means nursing homes and hospitals will not be able to provide services, therefore it is imperative the NMBI progresses registrations as speedily as possible. Administrative procedures should be put in place so that capacity in our health care system is not reduced. We need active engagement to deliver a solution that will solve the problem.

The chief executive of the NMBI, Dr. Maura Pidgeon, has agreed to come before our committee to discuss the issue and I hope the Minister's reply will give us some further hope that we can expedite a situation which is becoming problematic. I hate using the word "crisis" but it is becoming a real crisis when hospitals cannot get nurses because of a situation which we in this House have the power to address.

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