The Nurses.

Mitch Connor · 16-04-2007 10:23AM

Degsy wrote:

Most rank-and-file nurses arent irish,the irish nurses being churned out of colleges now dont want to work on wards,they want management style positions and this is what they think they should be paid extra for..the fact that they've gone to college.As for a "living in Dublin allowance" they can go to bloody hell,if they get one,i want one and i want it backdated 36 years.

if you work in the prison service, you get a 'living in dublin allowance'; wouldn't mind some of the prison service perks myself!

Wishbone Ash · 16-04-2007 10:32AM

Degsy wrote:

As for a "living in Dublin allowance" they can go to bloody hell,if they get one,i want one and i want it backdated 36 years.

The Dublin weighting Allowance was prosed to try to halt the stream of nursing staff that are relocating to areas outside Dublin. Most of the chronic shortages are within the Dublin region. All nursing qualifications are valid nationwide and that is why many choose to seek employment in other areas.

Many other employees have no choice but to live/work in Dublin as their place of employment is there. In that situation, there is less temptation to move and therefore less problems recruiting and retaining staff.

FlutterinBantam · 16-04-2007 11:06AM

While it may be a tad off topic,I think people are at last beginning to realise how the Public sector have been conning the taxpayer over the years

Inflation proof index linked pensions
priviledge days
lack of accountability
sackproof jobs
paid education

We have a situation in Galway where the water supply has become contaminated and left the area in the midst of a health crisis.

Anyone brought to book on the issue???? not one.

Any self respecting minister would ring the head honcho say"Find out who allowed this to happen-take appropriate action,and if you don't, consider your position".

Thats the generally it would go in the private sector....

So Nurses cop yourselves on and tell Doran to belt up before he leads ye all over the abyss

mickoneill30 · 16-04-2007 11:17AM

Wishbone Ash wrote:

Why the constant comparison to the private sector? There is nothing to compare nursing with. The working week of other private sector employees is irrevelant. The comparison should be made with other health care professionals working in the clinical area. They all work 35 hours per week or less.

Exactly. Don't compare the nurses with a group that has worse pay and hours than them. Compare them with a group with better pay and hours.

SimpleSam06 · 16-04-2007 12:34PM

Wishbone Ash wrote:

Why the constant comparison to the private sector? There is nothing to compare nursing with.

Well for one thing, the private sector pays the wages of the public sector. Why is the less well paid group funding the better paid and more secure group? Something sadly amiss in that particular equation. The public sector and taxes in general are called "leakage", in the Keynesian injection-leakage model, and are generally bad for an economy. In short, you lot don't actually produce anything.

Therefore, all other concerns aside, if you drain too much money from the coffers of the country, the whole operation will run aground. Not much I or anyone else can do to prevent the lemming rush at this stage, but at least we get to say "I told you so" when the fit hits the shan.

For another, are you trying to tell me that there is no qualification as high as nursing in the private sector?

patrickolee · 16-04-2007 02:01PM

SimpleSam06 wrote:

For another, are you trying to tell me that there is no qualification as high as nursing in the private sector?

No I'd say she's saying that there is no equivalent job in the private sector, i.e private nurses. I wonder are retirement homes run privately? How do their wages compare?

Anyway when Mary the hut brings in private healthcare, there will be a direct comparison. Maybe that's why she's pushing it?

-Moderately neutral.

Jimoslimos · 16-04-2007 03:10PM

Degsy wrote:

Most rank-and-file nurses arent irish,the irish nurses being churned out of colleges now dont want to work on wards,they want management style positions and this is what they think they should be paid extra for..the fact that they've gone to college.

That same statement could be applied for most professions across the board. Most junior doctors probably aspire to being a consultant one day.
And yes the requirement for a college degree for ANY job does generally mean that it will be better financially rewarded.

SimpleSam06 wrote:

The public sector and taxes in general are called "leakage", in the Keynesian injection-leakage model, and are generally bad for an economy. In short, you lot don't actually produce anything.

Please take your flawed Thatcherite economic policies back to the 80s where they belong;) The importance of a well-functioning health service can't be measured simply by amount of tax money in government coffers. Rather why not look at the loss of work days/productivity lost in the private sector due to illness, depression, waiting times for routine operations, etc. Anyway given the amount of tax breaks and aid to foreign companies in Ireland it could be said that the private sector isn't "injecting" as much as you would like to think.

Finally can we stop all this private V public sector nonsense. I work in a private sector job and if I have a concern over my working hours/pay I can;

1) Negotiate directly with my line manager/employer
2) If unsuccessful I have the option to relocate to another better paying company within the country

If on the other hand I work in the public sector;

1) Negotiation via union/strike is my only option.
2) If unsuccessful, emigration since pay and conditions are standard across the country

nesf · 16-04-2007 03:21PM

SimpleSam06 wrote:

Well for one thing, the private sector pays the wages of the public sector. Why is the less well paid group funding the better paid and more secure group? Something sadly amiss in that particular equation. The public sector and taxes in general are called "leakage", in the Keynesian injection-leakage model, and are generally bad for an economy. In short, you lot don't actually produce anything.

Therefore, all other concerns aside, if you drain too much money from the coffers of the country, the whole operation will run aground. Not much I or anyone else can do to prevent the lemming rush at this stage, but at least we get to say "I told you so" when the fit hits the shan.

For another, are you trying to tell me that there is no qualification as high as nursing in the private sector?

Eh, I thought the 70s and 80s provided plenty of examples of how the assumptions of Keynesian economics were just a tad dodgy?

nesf · 16-04-2007 03:23PM

Jimoslimos wrote:

Please take your flawed Thatcherite economic policies back to the 80s where they belong;)

Eh, wasn't Thatcher a follower of Friedrich Hayek not Keynes?

patrickolee · 16-04-2007 03:25PM

Jimoslimos wrote:

If on the other hand I work in the public sector;

1) Negotiation via union/strike is my only option.
2) If unsuccessful, emigration since pay and conditions are standard across the country

Could you not work 'agency' ? From distant memory, the girls I used to live with did that to get some extra cash for holidays etc. Because they were working shifts, they had long periods off, so they'd do a couple of nights here and there. Is the agency rate controlled? Or does the market dictate the rate?

mickoneill30 · 16-04-2007 03:27PM

Jimoslimos wrote:

Finally can we stop all this private V public sector nonsense.

Well the whole issue is that the nurses are comparing their pay and working hours to other workers. Why can't we (private sector) do that with the nurses.

Jimoslimos · 16-04-2007 03:46PM

mickoneill30 wrote:

Well the whole issue is that the nurses are comparing their pay and working hours to other workers. Why can't we (private sector) do that with the nurses.

Wrong. Nurses are comparing their wages to other workers within the public sector. Private sector workers are free to compare their wages (and move) with other private sector workers.

nesf wrote:

Eh, wasn't Thatcher a follower of Friedrich Hayek not Keynes?

Oh fine, spot the guy who only managed a D1 in his Leaving Cert economics:o . Point still stands though!

Sleepy · 16-04-2007 04:41PM

Why should nurses get more money because others are over-paid?

Are public nurses paid less than their private sector contemporaries (nursing home carers etc)? Because something tells me it's the other way around.

mickoneill30 · 16-04-2007 04:55PM

Jimoslimos wrote:

Wrong. Nurses are comparing their wages to other workers within the public sector. Private sector workers are free to compare their wages (and move) with other private sector workers.

Ah I didn't realise that private sector workers weren't allowed to compare their wages or benefits to public sector workers. No probs.

sam34 · 16-04-2007 05:32PM

Danger_Dave wrote:

. We only want what other health professional get within the health system. The majority of of health professionals work 35hr weeks, e.g Physio's, occupational therapists, dietians, social workers. Why should we be the ones to work 39hrs a week.

Also on a side note, in then nursing profession we dont just clock out when are shift ends you know?, i cant count how many times ive worked over my shift sometimes up to over an hour its so busy.
.

Poor poor dave. a 39 hr week? how harsh. how punitive. how unreasonable. get real dave. in my job, i regularly put in 60 to 70 hours a week. and thats considered cushy by my colleagues. you see, i am a hospital doctor. i knew before going into medicine that i would have to do nights on call and long shifts. if i wasnt prepared to do those hours i wouldn t have chosen this profession. simple as that.
and as for working an hour over ur shift, give me a break. i often work long shifts, by long i mean anything from 36 to 57 hours, so i have no sympathy when u mention a 13 hr shift.
and i'll just add one anecdote from a few years ago- i was at a cardiac arrest ie an emergency situation when someone needs resusitation, and there was a medical team as well as nursing staff there. in the middle of the arrest, a particular nurse looked at her watch and said she had to go as it was time for her lunch.now i know that was an isolated incident, but it epitomised for me a general attitude problem among nurses.

nesf · 16-04-2007 05:35PM

Jimoslimos wrote:

Oh fine, spot the guy who only managed a D1 in his Leaving Cert economics:o . Point still stands though!

The point stands for other reasons, but yeah it still stands.

I just was kind of shocked to see someone calling Thatcher a Keynesian. She was very publicly a disciple of Hayek.

SimpleSam06 · 16-04-2007 08:02PM

nesf wrote:

Eh, I thought the 70s and 80s provided plenty of examples of how the assumptions of Keynesian economics were just a tad dodgy?

Not that dodgy. After Keynes, Keynesian analysis was combined with classical economics to produce what is generally called "the neoclassical synthesis", which has been the dominant school of economic reasoning in English-speaking countries since the fifties. Hayek, of the Thatcher fame, was completely opposed to it.

Jimoslimos wrote:

Oh fine, spot the guy who only managed a D1 in his Leaving Cert economics . Point still stands though!

How does the point still stand in any way when you were pointing out a completely wrong school of economic thought? Does that not totally undermine any point you were trying to make after that? I weep, I really do.

nesf wrote:

The point stands for other reasons, but yeah it still stands.

Feel free to expand on that, please.

nesf · 16-04-2007 08:11PM

SimpleSam06 wrote:

Not that dodgy. After Keynes, Keynesian analysis was combined with classical economics to produce what is generally called "the neoclassical synthesis", which has been the dominant school of economic reasoning in English-speaking countries since the 1950's. Hayek, of the Thatcher fame, was completely opposed to it.

Ah, but neoclassical economics and reality tend to disagree quite a lot of the time (just take the minimum wage question as a starting point), the fact that it is the dominant school notwithstanding. I'm not arguing that it isn't useful, it is, but only that we shouldn't take it as gospel or fact which we know it isn't. Are you trying to vilify Hayek in the last comment? I can't tell.

SimpleSam06 wrote:

Feel free to expand on that, please.

His point that Keynesian economics should be left in the 80s and not brought up in this argument does kind of make sense. Regardless of the progression of Keynesian to neoclassical and the fact that the 80s is the wrong timeframe, I'm not convinced that your point actually makes sense within the context of this debate. To argue that nurses shouldn't get a payrise based on the idea that they don't produce anything (according to the model you are speaking of) is a bit of a non-issue from what I can see when the main argument being put forward for the pay rise seems to be that the labour market for nurses will suffer from low demand if we don't increase the wage we are willing to pay which is the economic point that should be addressed imho.

Spyral · 16-04-2007 08:29PM

Poor poor dave. a 39 hr week? how harsh. how punitive. how unreasonable. get real dave. in my job, i regularly put in 60 to 70 hours a week

.

and as for working an hour over ur shift, give me a break. i often work long shifts, by long i mean anything from 36 to 57 hours, so i have no sympathy when u mention a 13 hr shift.

you do get to sleep through them unless you are actaually doing something. Otherwise its illegal :P

Plus you get sh*t loads more money than a nurse.

The point which the nurses are making is that someone who has the same qualification and works less than them makes more and isnt responsible for a life.

tallaght01 · 16-04-2007 08:44PM

Sam34,

I too am a hospital doctor. I too work many more hours than the nurses I work with. Despite what spyral says, we do not get shed loads of money more than nurses. i am on more or less the same basic money as many of the nurses I work with. I too have been at cardiac arrests when the nurse has gone for her tea halfway through.

But......

1) Just because we are treated worse than nurses, doesn't mean they are treated well. It doesn't mean they shouldn't demand better conditions. It just means we need to grow some balls and campaign for better conditions ourselves.

2) why is there a perception that nurses go "on my break" whenever it falls,whether it's in a quiet period of the day, or in the middle of an arrest? I think it's to do with ownership of a situation, and "stakeholding" in the workplace. If a nurse is treated badly, and feels unvalued, then he/she won't feel a responsibility towards the patients and towards the ward. They even refer tot hem as "clients" now, which is the sign of a group of people who are just doing a job, rather then following a vocation. A demoralised staff are a staff who always know their rights, in my opinion.

Just because nurses may indeed get treated better than some of their private sector contemporaries, doesn't mean they are treated well.

I just wish somebody could work out a way of sorting this out, without knocking the benchmarking issue out of the water, and without causing a stampede by others in the private sector.

nesf · 16-04-2007 08:44PM

Spyral wrote:

The point which the nurses are making is that someone who has the same qualification and works less than them makes more and isnt responsible for a life.

Should we give train drivers a very large raise then considering the amount of lives they are responsible for?

SimpleSam06 · 16-04-2007 08:48PM

Starting to get wildly off topic here so I'll make this as brief as possible...

nesf wrote:

Ah, but neoclassical economics and reality tend to disagree quite a lot of the time

Aha but I didn't say neoclassical economics, I said the neoclassical synthesis, which is something else entirely.

nesf wrote:

Are you trying to vilify Hayek in the last comment? I can't tell.

Not especially, simply pointing out that the Thatcherism of which I was accused is about as far from what I was saying as possible, which was pure ignorance, of the lack of knowledge variety.

nesf wrote:

To argue that nurses shouldn't get a payrise based on the idea that they don't produce anything (according to the model you are speaking of) is a bit of a non-issue

I'd agee its something of an oversimplification to say they don't produce anything and so should not get a pay raise. However the number of nurses and the knock on effects throughout other branches of the (non productive) civil service, plus the fact that comparitive to other countries they are already extremely handsomely compensated, puts it closer to a macroeconomic question than anything else, which is where Keynesian equations come into play. In short, they threaten the stability and prosperity of the country, in my opinion.

nesf wrote:

from what I can see when the main argument being put forward for the pay rise seems to be that the labour market for nurses will suffer from low demand if we don't increase the wage we are willing to pay which is the economic point that should be addressed imho.

Which ignores the effects of globalisation and labour in a global market.

The 80s, as you point out, are over.

nesf · 16-04-2007 08:56PM

SimpleSam06 wrote:

Starting to get wildly off topic here so I'll make this as brief as possible...

Aha but I didn't say neoclassical economics, I said the neoclassical synthesis, which is something else entirely.

Not especially, simply pointing out that the Thatcherism of which I was accused is about as far from what I was saying as possible, which was pure ignorance, of the lack of knowledge variety.

I'd agee its something of an oversimplification to say they don't produce anything and so should not get a pay raise. However the number of nurses and the knock on effects throughout other branches of the (non productive) civil service, plus the fact that comparitive to other countries they are already extremely handsomely compensated, puts it closer to a macroeconomic question than anything else, which is where Keynesian equations come into play. In short, they threaten the stability and prosperity of the country, in my opinion.

Which ignores the effects of globalisation and labour in a global market.

The 80s, as you point out, are over.

All very true and I imagine we would go wildly off topic and start arguing the minutia of this back and forth for another few pages. For the sake of the thread staying on topic I'll agree to disagree.

Danger_Dave · 16-04-2007 11:08PM

sam34 wrote:

Poor poor dave. a 39 hr week? how harsh. how punitive. how unreasonable. get real dave. in my job, i regularly put in 60 to 70 hours a week. and thats considered cushy by my colleagues. you see, i am a hospital doctor. i knew before going into medicine that i would have to do nights on call and long shifts. if i wasnt prepared to do those hours i wouldn t have chosen this profession. simple as that.
and as for working an hour over ur shift, give me a break. i often work long shifts, by long i mean anything from 36 to 57 hours, so i have no sympathy when u mention a 13 hr shift.
and i'll just add one anecdote from a few years ago- i was at a cardiac arrest ie an emergency situation when someone needs resusitation, and there was a medical team as well as nursing staff there. in the middle of the arrest, a particular nurse looked at her watch and said she had to go as it was time for her lunch.now i know that was an isolated incident, but it epitomised for me a general attitude problem among nurses.

Is your job both phyiscally and mentally demanding ?. I work seven 12hour shifts in row on nights and not only do have to work out calculations for drugs etc... i have to clean wash patients who are incontinent and many other things which i dont need to get into, Now i do agree that doctors work seriously long hours, but so do nurses so dont forget that. Also being a doctor id really expect you to understand the amount of work the majority of nurses put in. Why are we the health profession that needs to take the slack for bad wages?.

Also id just like to point out benchmarking is not the only place people get pay rises, pay rises can be given outside of benchmarking, look at hospital managment they were recently given a pay rise, so why cant the nurses get the same?.. and get what was promised to us 27years ago?

tallaght01 · 16-04-2007 11:20PM

Danger_Dave wrote:

Is your job both phyiscally and mentally demanding ?.

Yes it is. We can go 14 hours without anything to eat or drink because we're so busy. And we often cover a whole hospital on our own, so you're running about like a blue arsed fly. I once worked in a hospital where the corridor connecting the two ends i was covering on my own was half a kilometre long!

I also got admitted to hospital with kidney stones because I was so dehydrated at work.

But the point I was making is that this shouldn't be a turf war. There's no point in playing the long hours card, because you're never going to work longer hours than the doctors. But that shouldn't be your concern. Just because we let the powers that be treat us as the modern day slaves doesn't mean you guys have to.

SimpleSam06 · 17-04-2007 09:05AM

tallaght01 wrote:

Yes it is. We can go 14 hours without anything to eat or drink because we're so busy. And we often cover a whole hospital on our own, so you're running about like a blue arsed fly. I once worked in a hospital where the corridor connecting the two ends i was covering on my own was half a kilometre long!

Haha, medical staff penis comparison. Well I work two hundred and thirty hours a week, and have to walk uphill to work - both ways. And thats luxury. Less of these tiresome anecdotes gentlemen, the witless plucking on the heartstrings gets tedious after a while. If anyone has any link or evidence to show nurses go 12 and 14 hours without rest on a regular basis in Ireland, do post it up.

FlutterinBantam · 17-04-2007 10:21AM

Don't worry Sam,if it's not the nurses,its the doctors,if its not them, its the teachers,paramedics,fire service,prison officers,garda.

Somewhere in the over unionised, over paid, under efficient, and unaccountable public service,there will be some auld bitter warhorses who have convinced themselves that they are"downtrodden""put upon" "badly treated".

they have nooo problem trying to screw the taxpayer confident in the assumption that they cannot be sacked.

Its starting to wear a bit thin comrades!!

Wishbone Ash · 17-04-2007 11:44AM

patrickolee wrote:

no equivalent job in the private sector, i.e private nurses. I wonder are retirement homes run privately? How do their wages compare?

Sleepy wrote:

Are public nurses paid less than their private sector contemporaries (nursing home carers etc)?

Nurses working in private hospitals/homes/clinics are generally paid the rate that has been established by the HSE-EA. If, for example, HSE nurses were granted a 5% rise, the private employers would have to follow suit. Thare may be some small differences in Terms and Conditions, generally as a result of 'local bargaining'.

patrickolee wrote:

Is the agency rate controlled? Or does the market dictate the rate?

I'm a bit rusty on agency rates. They used to be paid at the same rate as point 4 on the pay scales. Therefore, a nurse who is qualified more than four years would be working for less money while on 'agency'. The agency would also get a comission of 6% of the gross rate earned.

tallaght01 wrote:

I too am a hospital doctor. I too work many more hours than the nurses I work with. Despite what spyral says, we do not get shed loads of money more than nurses. i am on more or less the same basic money as many of the nurses I work with.

I agree but your difficult 'apprenticeship' is a means to an end. I presume you are a JHD but in a few years you will move on to improved remuneration and conditions of employment.

Nermal · 17-04-2007 09:00PM

Danger_Dave wrote:

i have to clean wash patients who are incontinent and many other things which i dont need to get into

Your violin is deafening me... I don't see binmen being paid a fortune, just because your job entails repulsive situations doesn't mean you deserve high pay for it.

tallaght01 · 17-04-2007 11:46PM

FlutterinBantam wrote:

Don't worry Sam,if it's not the nurses,its the doctors,if its not them, its the teachers,paramedics,fire service,prison officers,garda.

Somewhere in the over unionised, over paid, under efficient, and unaccountable public service,there will be some auld bitter warhorses who have convinced themselves that they are"downtrodden""put upon" "badly treated".

they have nooo problem trying to screw the taxpayer confident in the assumption that they cannot be sacked.

Its starting to wear a bit thin comrades!!

I don't think I represent bad value for money. I'm certainly not over paid and under efficient. I'd be happy to compare what I do on a 24 hour shift to what you do on one of your 24 hour shifts, and what you would get paid for a 24 hour shift compared to what I would get paid for a 24 hour shift. I reckon I'd be more efficient, and I reckon I work under a lot more stress, but who knows, I guess it's not really the point.

The point I was trying to make was that people have been saying since the start of this thread that they are treated worse than nurses. That may or may not be true.

It dosn't mean that nurses aren't badly treated.

That should be a reasonably simple point to comprehend.

Wishbone ash makes the point that working a 72 hour continuous shifts is ok, because we might get a good job out of it when we're 40. Surely that's taking the piss :P

I did originally make the point that I sympathise with the nurses, but I don't see a practical solution. That's the point I'd like to focus on. Can anyone see a way out of this?

The Nurses.

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