Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It should bring shame upon the Minister for Health and the Government that our student nurses and midwives are being exploited for cheap labour under the current clinical placement scheme. There is no other way of describing it. This has been a glaring issue for many years now but the severe additional pressure placed on student nurses and midwives this year during the pandemic has brought it even more to the fore, and rightly so. There has been a public outcry over this exploitation. The Social Democrats fully supports today's motion and we thank the Solidarity-People Before Profit group for bringing it forward.

The fact of the matter is that essential work is expected of students on clinical placements, for which they are not duly compensated. That is what this issue boils down to. Major problems have been layered onto that central issue this year, which I will come to in a moment. The issue at the heart of this matter is ongoing and unaddressed and it is about cheap, exploited labour being used to fill essential work. A student nurse who was in touch with me recently said:

We are not just students. We are fully integrated into our placements and despite being a student, every patient I have ever met has called me ‘nurse.’ To my patients, I am more than just a student. But to our government, I am nothing more than that.

Student nurses and midwives work, on average, 15 weeks per year for the first three years of their degree. The students who are lucky enough to receive a clinical placement allowance get a meagre €50.79 per week, while others receive nothing in compensation. Even that €50 per week is nowhere near enough to cover the cost of transport to attend a placement, that is, the cost of going to work, let alone tuition fees, accommodation costs or living expenses. In their final year, these students complete 36-week internships as rostered staff members and are paid €15,056. That is very far below the minimum wage rate.

This is not about pay in isolation. It is also about the fact that these students are expected to fulfil the duties of staff nurses and midwives. Chronic understaffing in our health service has made this the reality for some time now but it has clearly been intensified this year because of our circumstances. Over 16% of Covid-19 cases have been among healthcare workers. The nature of their work has placed them at increased risk and led to higher than normal absences from clinical settings, with students expected to fill those gaps. The Minister has tried to defend the status quoand justified students' lack of pay because the placement is part of their education. This is what a student nurse said to me in response to that:

It is no longer just an education when we are filling staffing gaps, when we are taking up roles unsupervised, or staying back late to help out. It is no longer just an education when qualified nurses and midwives are too overwhelmed, when staffing levels are dangerous. It is no longer just an education when students are breaking down in changing rooms, forced to skip meals to afford transport or rent, or when their wellbeing is compromised.

It is shocking to consider that that is what we are doing to our student nurses. We try so hard to get people to stay in this country after training but is it any wonder we have a difficulty when this is the way the Government treats our valuable student nurses?

It is clear from students' first-hand experiences that this is not a purely academic exercise. They are filling critical roles in our health service. On top of that, the pandemic has prevented many nursing students from holding part-time jobs as they would normally, in particular as healthcare assistants, because of the risk of cross-infection. Students are expected to perform the essential roles and duties of rostered staff. They are severely underpaid and in many cases are not paid at all. Now, on top of that, they are prevented from holding any other employment that would help them cover their daily and weekly costs.

The increased level of pay awarded to final-year nursing students this year needs to be made the standard, but there is still no commitment to guarantee this pay for interns starting their placements this January.

I will conclude by raising the cost of registering for nurses. Given that nurses have been through what amounts to a war zone this year, that so many have contracted Covid and that we have absolutely depended on them to save lives and keep our health service going, the least that can be done is to waive the €100 NMBI registration charge this year. I ask the Minister to consider the points made.

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