Do you think nurses will get their payrise?

06-02-2019 12:27pm

alloywheel wrote: »

The going rate in the UK for them is £18.42, and the government there has had no problem recruiting a hell of a lot of them.

Why is the taxpayer here being ripped off so much time and time again, paying €35.62, and getting a worse service and longer waiting lists etc than the NHS?

The NHS has an economy of scale advantage. Also, you need to stop with this average pay malarkey. You are just making yourself look uninformed. Average nursing pay as you look at it, includes head of nursing and management roles.

eagle eye · 06-02-2019 12:28pm

facehugger99 wrote:

All they care about is screwing the taxpayer for extra money.

The nurses and their unions aren't interested in addressing the inefficient working practices or structures.

It's probably pointless telling you this but they are striking for more nurses, patient safety and restoration of pay.

BarryD2 · 06-02-2019 12:29pm

iamwhoiam wrote: »

And the other engineers and physios and teachers and IT developers etc all have to stay here for 7 years ? Or is it just aimed at nurses ? They are not the only ones who's education was funded ?

I'd guess we're headed towards more substantial third level fees and a loan system.

Of course you can't just stop people emigrating as a general principle but I'd have thought the state would have a case to bring in limitations for specific areas, for the common good.

Twenty Grand · 06-02-2019 12:32pm

alloywheel wrote: »

Given that nurses here cost the government at least €35.62 per hour on average, and they are seeking even more, why not bring in agency nurses? There are plane loads of them in the far east only waiting to come as speak.

Really? Fuelled up and on the runway?
With all the correct qualifications, credentials, experience and paperwork? Willing to come to Ireland you say?

Where did you find this fantastical treasure trove of asian nurses, considering every other country in the western world can't recruit enough?

Deleted User wrote: »

The NHS has an economy of scale advantage. Also, you need to stop with this average pay malarkey. You are just making yourself look uninformed. Average nursing pay as you look at it, includes head of nursing and management roles.

The NHS has a more than 15% staff turnover rate and need at least 4 hospitals worth of nurses immediately as nurses and junior doctors get more and more burned out.
I can't think of a worse example.

eagle eye · 06-02-2019 12:32pm

I thinks it's funny that people bring up sick days. Like that are working with sick people and I'm sure many come in with contagious stuff. You'd have to imagine that nurses are going to catch a flu or something worse at some stage and probably quite more often than somebody working in an office in the banking sector.

BarryD2 · 06-02-2019 12:35pm

Heard two young nurses being interviewed yesterday on the picket line. 22/23 yrs of age - if they left school abt 17 or 18 and did a 4 yr Level 8 degree course, they could barely be employed in the system for more than a few months.

Yet they were complaining of 'burn out'. But it has always been thus - any young person entering a job has to work their way up, put in the hours, get the experience and make the extra effort. And all generally at starting levels of pay.

I don't like the term 'snowflakery' but you'd wonder at some young people now, maybe they've just had it too easy and handy??

amcalester · 06-02-2019 12:36pm

eagle eye wrote: »

I thinks it's funny that people bring up sick days. Like that are working with sick people and I'm sure many come in with contagious stuff. You'd have to imagine that nurses are going to catch a flu or something worse at some stage and probably quite more often than somebody working in an office in the banking sector.

That's a fair point, but uptake of the flu vaccine is pretty poor among healthcare workers. Less than half of acute healthcare workers get the vaccine.

BarryD2 · 06-02-2019 12:37pm

eagle eye wrote: »

I thinks it's funny that people bring up sick days. Like that are working with sick people and I'm sure many come in with contagious stuff. You'd have to imagine that nurses are going to catch a flu or something worse at some stage and probably quite more often than somebody working in an office in the banking sector.

Sure and they're supposed to get things like flu vaccinations. But one of the curious oddities is the low take up rate of flu jabs among people working in the medical professions...

markodaly · 06-02-2019 12:38pm

I mentioned this in another post but how would a payrise improve working conditions?

We know the way we provide much of our health services is chronically dysfunctional. Most people would agree with that, but how do we go about fixing it and what ideas do the INMO have?

eagle eye · 06-02-2019 12:42pm

amcalester wrote:

That's a fair point, but uptake of the flu vaccine is pretty poor among healthcare workers. Less than half of acute healthcare workers get the vaccine.

And you have a fair point too but it's not a part of this thing really.

Old diesel · 06-02-2019 12:48pm

alloywheel wrote: »

Given that nurses here cost the government at least €35.62 per hour on average, and they are seeking even more, why not bring in agency nurses? There are plane loads of them in the far east only waiting to come as speak.

For those who wonder where the figure of €35.62 comes from, it is easily found by dividing the annual pay of a nurse here ( €57,000 according to the HSE themselves, link given earlier about 2 hours ago) by the average number of hours worked, excluding holidays and sick days.

Do not forget, in the UK, agency nurses only cost the UK government £18.42 an hour, on average.
source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/13/nurseshortages-cost-nhs-24-billion-last-year/

By employing agency nurses, the government here would not have to give defined benefit pensions to them either, which is costing the government billions and which virtually no private sector employer can afford to give nowadays.

1) how many nurses actually end up getting 57 k.....

2) any pay figure you will see is PRE tax hence the actual net cost to the state is lower.

3) if nurses won't work for the HSE what makes you think they will work for the Agency at a lower rate on a potentially uncertain employment contract.

4) 100 percent Agency staffing means you are completely exposed to the market. An Agency will be TELLING you the rate per day/week based on what it can get nurses for on the open market AND the margin the Agency deems necessary.

amcalester · 06-02-2019 12:54pm

eagle eye wrote: »

And you have a fair point too but it's not a part of this thing really.

Yeah, maybe.

I think though that if there was a better uptake of (the) vaccine(s) among workers then the sickness issue could more easily be ignored.

I do agree that it is not unexpected that healthcare workers will pick up whatever bugs are going due to the nature of their work.

Old diesel · 06-02-2019 12:55pm

Twenty Grand wrote: »

Really? Fuelled up and on the runway?
With all the correct qualifications, credentials, experience and paperwork? Willing to come to Ireland you say?

Where did you find this fantastical treasure trove of asian nurses, considering every other country in the western world can't recruit enough?

The NHS has a more than 15% staff turnover rate and need at least 4 hospitals worth of nurses immediately as nurses and junior doctors get more and more burned out.
I can't think of a worse example.

Youd think if such a ready supply of cheap nurses existed then the HSE and Agencies would already have secured their services and we'd be sorted.

For me it's about a race to the bottom - such a pity that the same focus isn't put on housing cost, or the new childrens hospital cost.

eagle eye · 06-02-2019 12:55pm

markodaly wrote:

I mentioned this in another post but how would a payrise improve working conditions?

The pay rise is wanted because of how hard they are working.

markodaly wrote:

We know the way we provide much of our health services is chronically dysfunctional. Most people would agree with that, but how do we go about fixing it and what ideas do the INMO have?

I'm sure you'll find all their ideas on their website.

06-02-2019 12:58pm

Old diesel wrote: »

1) how many nurses actually end up getting 57 k.....

Maybe not one earns exactly €57000, but that is irrelevant. It is the average.

If the average number of children in an Irish family is 2.1 (say) how many Irish families have 2.1 children ?

Varta · 06-02-2019 1:00pm

BarryD2 wrote: »

Sure and they're supposed to get things like flu vaccinations. But one of the curious oddities is the low take up rate of flu jabs among people working in the medical professions...

As medics they know it is next to useless. A scam promoted heavily by the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture it.

ELM327 · 06-02-2019 1:03pm

BarryD2 wrote: »

Heard two young nurses being interviewed yesterday on the picket line. 22/23 yrs of age - if they left school abt 17 or 18 and did a 4 yr Level 8 degree course, they could barely be employed in the system for more than a few months.

Yet they were complaining of 'burn out'. But it has always been thus - any young person entering a job has to work their way up, put in the hours, get the experience and make the extra effort. And all generally at starting levels of pay.

I don't like the term 'snowflakery' but you'd wonder at some young people now, maybe they've just had it too easy and handy??

It's almost as if they took a nursing course expecting to be an office admin or something.

How can someone pursue a career with a wage increase deal in place and then complain.

ELM327 · 06-02-2019 1:04pm

Varta wrote: »

As medics they know it is next to useless. A scam promoted heavily by the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture it.

There's a lot of spurious information or opinion being posted in this thread but please for the love of god don't spread anti-vax nonsense here. The nurses issue is enough of a contention.

hawkelady · 06-02-2019 1:04pm

BarryD2 wrote: »

Sure and they're supposed to get things like flu vaccinations. But one of the curious oddities is the low take up rate of flu jabs among people working in the medical professions...

Isn’t the flu vaccine a strain of previous years flu ? Maybe the nurses don’t want to risk getting sick from it ..
I do agree that it’s nothing to do with the strike

batgoat · 06-02-2019 1:05pm

alloywheel wrote: »

The going rate in the UK for them is £18.42, and the government there has had no problem recruiting a hell of a lot of them.

Why is the taxpayer here being ripped off so much time and time again, paying €35.62, and getting a worse service and longer waiting lists etc than the NHS?

I've probably spent more time in hospitals than most people my age. Nurses were always amazing and dealing with incredible levels of stress in the process. The nurses are not responsible for the systemic administrative issues.

facehugger99 · 06-02-2019 1:05pm

eagle eye wrote: »

The pay rise is wanted because of how hard they are working.
.

The country can't afford a pay rise.

Doesn't matter how much you want one.

We've gone €200 billion into debt, mainly as a result of our over-generous PS pay and pensions.

There's no more money in the pot to pay another round of increases to the most-protected, over-paid and cosseted bunch of workers in the country.

The sooner the nurses and the rest of the PS unions grasp this very simple idea the better.

markodaly · 06-02-2019 1:08pm

eagle eye wrote: »

The pay rise is wanted because of how hard they are working.

I'm sure you'll find all their ideas on their website.

Not really a thought-provoking response I was after.

'We work hard, so give us more money.'

This was is repeating the same mistakes of the past.

So, I'll ask again. How will a pay rise improve health services?

ifElseThen · 06-02-2019 1:08pm

I'll preface this with saying that any nurses I've met are 99% lovely people suited to the job of patient interaction.

My father is in a HSE nursing home. The nurses are very pleasant but the only real interaction they have with him is dropping in the pills, taking blood pressure etc.

I've been in and out of A&E in St James the last few years with the old pair and I have not seen overworked nurses even in such a busy A&E. Granted it's only ever a snapshot I've seen but those have been windows of a few hours. I will say that I've seen the A&E triage nurses under pressure and working with some right rough cases.

In my old man's case, doctors do the actual investigative work, care assistants do the washing etc.

So this is a genuine question, what else do nurses do that make their conditions so harsh? In their view is it solely we don't have enough of them?

And if we hire more, do they do less overtime and then earn less?

I believe they use the A&E overcrowding narrative to their own ends to imply massively overworked stressed conditions. I've been to A&E > 10 times in the last 2 years across times and days. While busy, it hasn't been chaotic.

eagle eye · 06-02-2019 1:10pm

markodaly wrote:

So, I'll ask again. How will a pay rise improve health services?

And I said go read their website and you'll find out what they have to say.

06-02-2019 1:22pm

eagle eye wrote: »

Mismanagement, not the nurses fault. It's all down to people earning much more than nurses up to and including the many people who've had the position of Minister for Health.

And therein lies the problem in the health service. Sure there are moats in lots of eyes. But every group insists "its nothing to do with us, its them". Any with any change, every group has its hand out with "what's in it for us?".

For example, back in 2007 the INO (now INMO) demanded €3,000 per worker to cooperate with the transfer of services from St. Finbarr's to Cork Uni Hospital. That was in addition to other demands re staffing levels, staff upgrades, free parking, etc.

This is one we know about because it was large scale enough to reach the papers. Any sort of re -organisation of services must be a slow running nightmare.

As has been said many times, there is loads of money going to the HSE. Far too much for the standard of services delivered. If all groups stopped looking at there own sectoral interests and really cooperated in reform the service would improve - and there would be money from savings for outstanding needs.

Gunmonkey · 06-02-2019 1:23pm

Varta wrote: »

As medics they know it is next to useless. A scam promoted heavily by the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture it.

Well as medics, they should know better! They, as medics, should know they need to take every available preventative measure to stop the spread of infectious diseases!

What next?
"Oh, my hands look clean enough, I dont need to wash or disinfect them before treating a patient!"
"Ah, that syringe looks clean, no blood on that, sure will be using it for the same medicine anyways!"
"Sure those bed clothes are clean enough! That floor is clean enough, no mud on it!" (yes I know this last one is not really connected to nurses, but imagine we ran a health service with this mentality?)

So they either: get the vaccine and they run a low risk they might get the flu via it, or don't and run a fairly high risk they will catch it via patients!

Not even a discussion, if they think they way you propose, they shouldn't be working within the health service!

06-02-2019 1:32pm

Varta wrote: »

As medics they know it is next to useless. A scam promoted heavily by the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture it.

As nurses have told us about there degree in health science, they surely know better than this.

iamwhoiam · 06-02-2019 1:37pm

ifElseThen wrote: »

I'll preface this with saying that any nurses I've met are 99% lovely people suited to the job of patient interaction.

My father is in a HSE nursing home. The nurses are very pleasant but the only real interaction they have with him is dropping in the pills, taking blood pressure etc.

I've been in and out of A&E in St James the last few years with the old pair and I have not seen overworked nurses even in such a busy A&E. Granted it's only ever a snapshot I've seen but those have been windows of a few hours. I will say that I've seen the A&E triage nurses under pressure and working with some right rough cases.

In my old man's case, doctors do the actual investigative work, care assistants do the washing etc.

So this is a genuine question, what else do nurses do that make their conditions so harsh? In their view is it solely we don't have enough of them?

And if we hire more, do they do less overtime and then earn less?

I believe they use the A&E overcrowding narrative to their own ends to imply massively overworked stressed conditions. I've been to A&E > 10 times in the last 2 years across times and days. While busy, it hasn't been chaotic.

I will give you are very quick snapshot of about 4 hours on a night shift that I did many a night .
Handover , quick look in on 6 or 7 patients who were post op or very ill . Drug round and pain relief round , Set up IV drugs and administer them ( could be 4 or 5 kids on IV,s )
Check all lines , catheters , wounds , check observations and oxygen levels .
Take results of lab tests on phone . Try to get a doctor to come because patients needs blood . Get blood charted and run to lab for it , hang blood and do half hourly obs .
Admission arrives , child in respiratory distress so get him quickly on nebulisers and oxygen .
Meantime phone is ringing non stop with queries about patients and lab on the phone
Burns dressing soiled so dressing taken down and redressed on a streesed child and parents crying
At some stage try to go to the loo but not always possible .
Just get on top of all that and repeat all over again for the next four hours
We ran all night from one patient to another and gave them our absolute best and often with no break except a quickly grabbed cup of coffee while writing the pile high of paperwork .

Ps . Factor in a very sick child or an arrest and you chase your tail , stress levels rising becase you now have to prioritise who needs you more
Ring Admin for a nurse as the ward is getting dangerous . No nurse available all too busy . Stress levels now high as some kids are not getting the absolute care that they should
Go home stressed and try to sleep so you can do it all over again

TheRiverman · 06-02-2019 1:38pm

1641 wrote: »

As nurses have told us about there degree in health science, they surely know better than this.

There ?

Gunmonkey · 06-02-2019 1:40pm

eagle eye wrote: »

And I said go read their website and you'll find out what they have to say.

Where? I checked and all it is is:

-Membership (how to sign up, the benefits etc)
-Pay & Rights (nurse pay scales and employment rights)
-Education (help for new nurses reg placements and library of textbooks)
-Industrial Relations (where to talk to regional reps etc)
-Media (press releases and "trolley watch" figures)
-Campaigns...from the website:

INMO are constantly striving to improve working conditions for our members, along with promoting patient health and safety, and raising concerns about key health issues

In this section you can find out about our current campaigns and see how you can get involved – and make a difference for other nursing colleagues as well as the people you care for.

....but then just info on picket locations, and nothing about what they want changed!
-Basic Contact info

So where is their list of improvements for the HSE? I cant see it. Even the .pdf for "Q&A Recruitment & Retention" (which I assume covers this as thats what we hear in every soundbite as the root cause of this dispute) and it just shows pay scales and how it compares to teachers, radiographers and Gardaí! So the INMO stance is just "pay us more money" and all the structural problems about operating practices in the HSE will vanish overnight?

I highly doubt that!

06-02-2019 1:42pm

TheRiverman wrote: »

There ?

Thanks. There should be their!

06-02-2019 1:43pm

Lower paid nurses are due a 25% increase in pay now as its stands because of increases, jumping salary points and changes in pension contributions.

But that is not enough to entice them to stay.

What's to say another 12% will?
And if it doesn't, then what?

eagle eye · 06-02-2019 1:50pm

salonfire wrote:

What's to say another 12% will? And if it doesn't, then what?

Pay them enough to keep them here.

06-02-2019 1:53pm

eagle eye wrote: »

Pay them enough to keep them here.

So why are so many going to the UK to be paid less?

eagle eye · 06-02-2019 1:56pm

salonfire wrote:

So why are so many going to the UK to be paid less?

I don't know, maybe better working conditions?

06-02-2019 2:03pm

Anyone "in the know" able to explain more about these allowances, what they mean, who can get them, how much they are worth, etc ?

Qualification Entitlement/Allowance
Dual Qualified Allowance
Sunday Allowance
Sunday Premium
Night Duty Allowance
Unit Allowance
Nurse Coordinator Allowance
Specialist Coordinator Allowance
Community Allowance
Nurse assigned to Occupational Therapy(Qualified)
Nurse assigned to Occupational Therapy (Unqualified)

Also, what is the overtime rate ? Is it the same for public holidays?

Gunmonkey · 06-02-2019 2:17pm

eagle eye wrote: »

I don't know, maybe better working conditions?

Which are? I posted above, there is nowt on their webpage about what changes they want, everything I can find connecting to this series of strike seems to just be "12% or we strike!"

Are these measures being withheld until the next wave of strikes if they get the 12% increase? Maybe throw these onto the table, ask for "ok, a 4 or 6% pay increase but alongside these changes"....a lot better to bring to the table than just "12% or we riot!"

All I have heard from soundbites from the INMO is "we dont get paid enough!" "nurses are choosing to go overseas" (to lower wages apparantly) "we study for 4 years and are paid less than other jobs who also study for 4 years!"

None of those are arguments about what needs to change in terms of operating practices....if its such a big deal, maybe slap those into the media narrative, some form of stepping stone to get talks working....not just "12% or we strike!"

ELM327 · 06-02-2019 2:27pm

iamwhoiam wrote: »

I will give you are very quick snapshot of about 4 hours on a night shift that I did many a night .
Handover , quick look in on 6 or 7 patients who were post op or very ill . Drug round and pain relief round , Set up IV drugs and administer them ( could be 4 or 5 kids on IV,s )
Check all lines , catheters , wounds , check observations and oxygen levels .
Take results of lab tests on phone . Try to get a doctor to come because patients needs blood . Get blood charted and run to lab for it , hang blood and do half hourly obs .
Admission arrives , child in respiratory distress so get him quickly on nebulisers and oxygen .
Meantime phone is ringing non stop with queries about patients and lab on the phone
Burns dressing soiled so dressing taken down and redressed on a streesed child and parents crying
At some stage try to go to the loo but not always possible .
Just get on top of all that and repeat all over again for the next four hours
We ran all night from one patient to another and gave them our absolute best and often with no break except a quickly grabbed cup of coffee while writing the pile high of paperwork .

Ps . Factor in a very sick child or an arrest and you chase your tail , stress levels rising becase you now have to prioritise who needs you more
Ring Admin for a nurse as the ward is getting dangerous . No nurse available all too busy . Stress levels now high as some kids are not getting the absolute care that they should
Go home stressed and try to sleep so you can do it all over again

Excellent, you are commendably doing your job as you signed up for and agreed a pay deal for.

No reason to break a pre existing agreement for it

iamwhoiam · 06-02-2019 2:31pm

ELM327 wrote: »

Excellent, you are commendably doing your job as you signed up for and agreed a pay deal for.

No reason to break a pre existing agreement for it

Not once did I say there was actually .It was asked what nurses actually do and I answered

Varta · 06-02-2019 2:31pm

ELM327 wrote: »

There's a lot of spurious information or opinion being posted in this thread but please for the love of god don't spread anti-vax nonsense here. The nurses issue is enough of a contention.

I am not by any means anti-vax. If it weren't for the work of Edward Jenner half of us would not be here today. Vaccinations save countless lives and potential misery, but I would imagine Jenner is spinning in his grave at the way pharmaceutical manufacturers abuse people through fear.

Varta · 06-02-2019 2:36pm

Gunmonkey wrote: »

Well as medics, they should know better! They, as medics, should know they need to take every available preventative measure to stop the spread of infectious diseases!

What next?
"Oh, my hands look clean enough, I dont need to wash or disinfect them before treating a patient!"
"Ah, that syringe looks clean, no blood on that, sure will be using it for the same medicine anyways!"
"Sure those bed clothes are clean enough! That floor is clean enough, no mud on it!" (yes I know this last one is not really connected to nurses, but imagine we ran a health service with this mentality?)

So they either: get the vaccine and they run a low risk they might get the flu via it, or don't and run a fairly high risk they will catch it via patients!
They are making an informed decision.
Not even a discussion, if they think they way you propose, they shouldn't be working within the health service!

The Flu vaccine is not a core vaccine and anyway it is usually at least one season out of date.

ifElseThen · 06-02-2019 2:43pm

iamwhoiam wrote: »

I will give you are very quick snapshot of about 4 hours on a night shift that I did many a night .
Handover , quick look in on 6 or 7 patients who were post op or very ill . Drug round and pain relief round , Set up IV drugs and administer them ( could be 4 or 5 kids on IV,s )
Check all lines , catheters , wounds , check observations and oxygen levels .
Take results of lab tests on phone . Try to get a doctor to come because patients needs blood . Get blood charted and run to lab for it , hang blood and do half hourly obs .
Admission arrives , child in respiratory distress so get him quickly on nebulisers and oxygen .
Meantime phone is ringing non stop with queries about patients and lab on the phone
Burns dressing soiled so dressing taken down and redressed on a streesed child and parents crying
At some stage try to go to the loo but not always possible .
Just get on top of all that and repeat all over again for the next four hours
We ran all night from one patient to another and gave them our absolute best and often with no break except a quickly grabbed cup of coffee while writing the pile high of paperwork .

Ps . Factor in a very sick child or an arrest and you chase your tail , stress levels rising becase you now have to prioritise who needs you more
Ring Admin for a nurse as the ward is getting dangerous . No nurse available all too busy . Stress levels now high as some kids are not getting the absolute care that they should
Go home stressed and try to sleep so you can do it all over again

Are you working in a high dependency unit? Thanks for the insight. So more nurses will ease the workload is it?

Based on that frenetic environment, why would anyone decide to become a nurse? Sounds like a prime route to an early death!

iamwhoiam · 06-02-2019 2:46pm

ifElseThen wrote: »

Are you working in a high dependency unit? Thanks for the insight. So more nurses will ease the workload is it?

Based on that frenetic environment, why would anyone decide to become a nurse? Sounds like a prime route to an early death!

No it was a surgical and burns ward not HIGh dependency . Yep , I was on that route so I resigned before my pension was due and did something else .Yes most definetely more nurses were needed .

Martina1991 · 06-02-2019 3:07pm

Gunmonkey wrote: »

Which are? I posted above, there is nowt on their webpage about what changes they want, everything I can find connecting to this series of strike seems to just be "12% or we strike!"

Are these measures being withheld until the next wave of strikes if they get the 12% increase? Maybe throw these onto the table, ask for "ok, a 4 or 6% pay increase but alongside these changes"....a lot better to bring to the table than just "12% or we riot!"

All I have heard from soundbites from the INMO is "we dont get paid enough!" "nurses are choosing to go overseas" (to lower wages apparantly) "we study for 4 years and are paid less than other jobs who also study for 4 years!"

None of those are arguments about what needs to change in terms of operating practices....if its such a big deal, maybe slap those into the media narrative, some form of stepping stone to get talks working....not just "12% or we strike!"

I agree with you. I'm wondering why is the pay increase they’re looking for 12%, why not 5 or 7 and see if this will entice new graduates to stay?
I've heard it's to restore pay to 2008 levels but sure every HSE worker was on more money back then and would love to be on more money again.

Why should the pay increase apply to all the others like Clinical Nurse/Midwife Manager, Nurse Tutor, Public Health Nurse, Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Director of Nursing/Matron etc when all of those other titles and roles have excellent salaries and are not filling the positions on the wards.

I would support the increase if it only applied to the basic staff nurse salary.

BarryD2 · 06-02-2019 4:02pm

eagle eye wrote: »

Pay them enough to keep them here.

That sounds about as vague as May's 'alternative arrangements' for the backstop etc. Suppose you pay all graduate nurses €60K 'to keep them here' - what do you think will happen in all other areas of the PS.

If they want to emigrate, then let them go. But no whining then about relocation costs when they want to come home to the emerald isle. We might as well employ nurses from other states, who feel able to work in the system.

Twenty Grand · 06-02-2019 4:42pm

BarryD2 wrote: »

If they want to emigrate, then let them go. But no whining then about relocation costs when they want to come home to the emerald isle. We might as well employ nurses from other states, who feel able to work in the system.

And who replaces them?

This elusive plane load of asian nurses?

tretorn · 06-02-2019 5:01pm

ifElseThen wrote: »

I'll preface this with saying that any nurses I've met are 99% lovely people suited to the job of patient interaction.

My father is in a HSE nursing home. The nurses are very pleasant but the only real interaction they have with him is dropping in the pills, taking blood pressure etc.

I've been in and out of A&E in St James the last few years with the old pair and I have not seen overworked nurses even in such a busy A&E. Granted it's only ever a snapshot I've seen but those have been windows of a few hours. I will say that I've seen the A&E triage nurses under pressure and working with some right rough cases.

In my old man's case, doctors do the actual investigative work, care assistants do the washing etc.

So this is a genuine question, what else do nurses do that make their conditions so harsh? In their view is it solely we don't have enough of them?

And if we hire more, do they do less overtime and then earn less?

I believe they use the A&E overcrowding narrative to their own ends to imply massively overworked stressed conditions. I've been to A&E > 10 times in the last 2 years across times and days. While busy, it hasn't been chaotic.

I have a relative in a nursing home and I have never found a nurse at any stage in his room and he is in the home for two years now. I mean they come in and get him up in the morning and put him in a chair and they dispense medicine. They dont chat or engage in any conversation with him and the care assistants do all the sheet changing, and showers and clothes organising etc. There is never a nursr to be found when I call in and I have made a few complaints about this and my relative says they are short staffed.

My relly needed physiotherapy and the PT attached to the home showed me what exercises needed to be done. He said to make sure the nurses signed that they had actually done the exercises because if you dont have that relly will be left in the chair. If relly says I dont want to do the exercises nurse will say, thats ok, we wont force you, there is no encouragement at all.

Relly had to get a wheelchair and it was complicated to work it. The wheelchair specialist had to go around the corridors and round up the staff to show them how to do it, most didnt even listen and then they practiced with elderly relly sitting in the chair. A new nurse arrived and I tried to show him how to work the chair and he stood watching the TV while i talked him through it.

I went in one day and relly was lying on the floor, I helped to pick him up and asked nurse manager what could we do to prevent this happening again, he said get relly into the bed and he left. I dont know how long relly was lying on the floor so the next thing was to get the wheelchair with a belt but because nursing staff didnt bother learning out to set the chair properly it wasnt comfortable for the elderly person. The wheelchair was also quite dirty because of food dropping onit and no one bothered to clean it either.

Elderly relative became very shaky and food was dropped into him and nurse or whatever would just drop it and leave and then come back and pick up what was left. If you asked about the daily food intake you would be shown the varied diet on the PC. It was quite clear the man couldnt manage to feed himself and he was the responsibility of the nurse and none of them cared.

So no, they arent all angels and they have no right to demand to be put on the same pay scale as PHysios and Speech and language therapists. The CAO points rise relative to expected income and Physios and SLTs traditionally earned more than nurses so points for these courses are higher. You can substitute one nurse for another but a PT is a highly qualified specialist in the anatomy of the body and a nurse is not specialised to undertake whats involved in physio for a stroke patient for example. The nurses are on a hiding to nothing demanding to be put on a par with physios, if the Government give into this then every grade paid higher than nurses at present will strike demanding an increase.

Goldengirl · 06-02-2019 5:26pm

1641 wrote: »

You both constantly dismiss any indepenent analysis. The OECD admit that international comparison is difficult because of the multitudes of allowances, etc., and how they are applied in different jurisdictions. So ,no, it is probably not 100% accurate. .”[/I]

Glad you finally admitted it.
Why quote any article that admits it is not accurate?
Grasping at straws...

tretorn · 06-02-2019 5:29pm

The nurses keep referring to salaries they can earn in Australia but the standard of living in Australia is higher than here.

A hair including wash and blow dry in Australia costs the equivalent of 120 Euros. Health care and health insurance is also very expensive too.

To get an idea of nurses salaries we would need to compare with nurses pay in the UK.

eagle eye · 06-02-2019 5:32pm

ELM327 wrote: »

Excellent, you are commendably doing your job as you signed up for and agreed a pay deal for.

No reason to break a pre existing agreement for it

I don't think any of them signed up for a pay cut which happened.

Do you think nurses will get their payrise?

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