Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not wish to set a precedent and I will not take all of the time because I do not want to be in other people's way when they want to make their contributions. I thank the Ceann Comhairle and everyone else for indulging me.

I noted the Minister's speech in which he referred to the need for patient safety, which is extremely important. However, when we consider the issue of staffing levels, we must also consider the issue of staff safety. In many of our hospitals, staffing levels are at crisis point and our nurses, doctors, porters, cleaners and all our healthcare workers are used to operating in a semi-warlike environment, which is really tough for them. When staffing levels get low, there is a consequent increase in levels of violence because it makes the hospital unsafe and not just for patients. From a patient safety perspective, short-staffing is a grave issue. When staffing levels are low, violence against staff increases. If we look at our nursing and midwifery workforce, we can see it is predominantly female. They are the ones who bear the brunt of these assaults. As recently as February, the INMO was pointing out that there are ten assaults per day on nurses. That is really shocking.

As shocking as that figure is, and I am shocked by it, we also know there is a significant issue with under-reporting. I represented nurses for nearly a decade. They have a great way of just getting past it and getting on with their work. They are coming back into work the next day but I want to impress something on the Government because it is important. There has been a lot of talk in this Chamber, and rightly so, about threats made against parliamentarians and working in an atmosphere where we feel our safety might be slightly compromised. Many female Members have said it makes them somewhat fearful to come in to do their job. That is a fact. If people are worried about violence, it makes them fearful to do their job but our nurses, porters, cleaners, doctors and physiotherapists work in an environment where staffing levels are low and they run the risk of an increase in levels of violence yet they still come in every day. There is no "Prime Time" special about this. Nobody is doing lengthy one-to-one interviews on "The Late Late Show" about this. It is just par for the course for them. I urge members of the Government to put themselves in the shoes of those men and women who are coming back into work after an assault. It is really tough. They know the pressure is on them. Because they are short-staffed, they know they have to come into work because if they do not, they are letting their patients, colleagues and the health service down and they just do not do that. However, it is really tough to get up and go back into work to the same place where an assault occurred. There are ten assaults per day on nurses and midwives and that is just one grade. It is a big grade but it is just one grade within the health service. That is replicated throughout the health service. They come in every day when they can and it is really traumatising. They are driven back into work because they do not want to let their patients and colleagues down. We are asking them to do something that is traumatising and re-traumatising them.

The answer to this is fairly simple. We need a 24-hour security presence in our accident and emergency departments. We also need advanced risk assessment to find out where there are dangerous situations and situations where staff safety could be compromised. They need to be risk assessed and then staffed appropriately. When we talk about safe staffing, it is incredibly important from a patient safety perspective but it is also extremely important from the perspective of the health, safety and welfare of healthcare workers. As it stands, I imagine the Government and the health service are failing in their obligations to these people under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act. These people are not failing. Ten nurses per day are assaulted and the figure is going in the wrong direction, yet they come into work the next day. They are coming back to the place where that trauma and violence occurred. They are getting up, coming back in and going back to their workplace. We owe them great gratitude for doing that but we also owe them proper staffing and a safe place to work.

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