Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This motion is about fairness and respect for student nurses and midwives. We have systemic understaffing in the health service. This predates Covid, but Covid has exacerbated the difficulty. Nowhere is this problem more evident than in my local hospital, University Hospital Limerick, UHL, in the constituency of Limerick City. Twice so far in 2021 we have had 66 patients being treated on hospital trolleys and at no stage this year has the trolley number fallen below 35. The pre-existing staffing and capacity issues at the hospital are compounded by the absence of staff who have been forced to isolate for Covid reasons. We wish them well in their recovery and isolation periods.

In UHL, like in many hospitals throughout the State, it is the student nurses who have stepped into the breach. They have stepped up. They have truly entered the bearna baoil. They have been brave. Since the start of the pandemic, the work they have done has gone beyond their educational requirements. To be fair, these nurses are filling the gaps in the health service and they are doing it for no pay. I have had the opportunity to speak to hospital staff and they are in no doubt about the important function the student nurses have served. The feedback I received is that the behaviour and performance of the students in general has been exemplary.

The frightening post-Christmas rise in infection has put significant pressure on staff in the health service. Healthcare staff are exhausted, both physically and mentally. We must be cognisant of the mental strain this pandemic is putting them under.

Due to the need for visitor restrictions, it is nurses and student nurses who are now the only human contact that patients have. This is a heavy burden for pre-graduate personnel to carry.

This is what the family of one student nurse had to say to me:

My daughter is on a Covid ward. Because of staff shortages, [she] and two other staff members were on the ward alone. She was assigned over ten Covid patients. She has been working long hours. She tells me the hospital has been wonderful to her but given the risks she is exposed to, she feels she should be paid the healthcare assistant rate at the very least.

These students have answered Ireland's call but now it is time for us to answer their call. It is time to pay these people for the work they do. A payment of €100 per week for clinical placement during the Covid-19 pandemic is clearly not enough. The applause and appreciation we offer is important but it is simply not enough either. Our appreciation of their work and the risks they face must be shown in a more tangible way. We can offer those students that tangible recognition.

The healthcare assistant arrangement from the start of the pandemic can and should be reinstated to ensure students are appropriately paid for their work on the front line during the pandemic. The opportunity to do this is now. The next generation of health professionals is watching and if the Minister wants them to work in our health service when this pandemic ends, we need to treat them with respect and give them deserved pay now.

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