Written Answers. - Nursing Staff.
Richard Bruton
Ceist:
138
Mr. R. Bruton
asked the
Minister for Health and Children
the recent trends in the number of nurses employed in the Dublin health services; and the way in which the reported shortfall of 1,200 nurses is to be made up.
[23742/00]
A nationwide survey of nursing vacancies existing on 30 September 2000 is currently being undertaken by the Health Service Employers' Agency on behalf of my Department. When this survey has been completed, I will transmit the results to the Deputy.
However, at this stage I can inform the Deputy that the total number of nursing vacancies in the Eastern Regional Health Authority area is 1,137. This deficit is mitigated by the employment of 366 whole-time equivalent agency nurses. The impact of the shortage is further mitigated by overtime working.
The major Dublin acute hospitals account for 41% of the vacancies. However, the Mater Hospital has been very successful in the recruitment of nurses from the Philippines over the past 12 months, resulting in a dramatic improvement in its position. The position in St. Vincent's Hospital has also improved, following recruitment of nurses from Australia and New Zealand. Beaumont Hospital has also recently had a successful recruitment campaign in the Far East and will fill a significant number of vacancies when the new recruits commence work from the end of this month onwards. St. James's Hospital has recently recruited successfully in South Africa and anticipates that 26 nurses from there will join its staff in the near future, contributing to an improved situation. The Adelaide and Meath Hospital, Dublin, incorporating the National Children's Hospital, has recruited 42 nurses from Jordan and India, 21 of whom began work this week. It also has 27 nurses from Finland, Norway and Australia on its books.
In addition to overseas recruitment, new graduates from the nursing diploma programmes will be coming on stream in the next few months. It is anticipated, therefore, that the overall position will have improved significantly by the end of this year.
The Deputy should also note that increasing the annual intakes of nursing students is a key element of the overall strategy for addressing the current shortage of nurses. Under an agreement between my Department and the nursing alliance, an additional 300 training places were provided this year, bringing to 1,500 the total number of training places available. The intention is that this level of intake will be maintained in 2001 and 2002.
Some 1,500 new nursing students commenced training this month at various centres around the country – 1,000 in general nursing, 200 in mental handicap nursing and 300 in psychiatric nursing. This represents a 25% increase over last year's intake of 1,200 students, which in itself was the highest for several years. Record numbers of students have entered both psychiatric and mental handicap nurse training this year. Because of the high level of acceptances by successful applicants, some centres are oversubscribed.
There are currently some 3,720 nursing students at various stages of training and we are on target to have 4,500 students in training by the year 2002.
