Róisín Shortall
Ceist:655 Ms Shortall asked the Minister for Health and Children the action which has been taken to address the shortage of intensive care nurses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22524/01]
Written Answers. - Nursing Services.
On 29 November 2000, I announced details of a £5 million package of incentives aimed at attracting nurses and midwives back to work, retaining nurses and midwives in the public health service and addressing shortages in specialist areas. As part of the initiative, I made funding available for nursing courses in specified specialised areas of clinical practice, including intensive care, in order to address the critical shortage of nurses in those areas. In particular, I have provided funding for the establishment of new courses in hospitals outside of Dublin, including the Cork hospitals, Waterford Regional Hospital and Limerick Regional Hospital. This is being done to arrest the drift of specialist nurses from the acute Dublin hospitals. The availability of new programmes in hospitals around the country is intended to free up places in the Dublin hospitals which can be allocated to Dublin based nurses.
Under the initiative nurses or midwives undertaking certain specialist courses will receive full pay while doing so. They will also be entitled to have their fees paid in full, in return for a commitment on their part to continue working within the public health service in the specialist area for one year – 12 months – following completion of the course.
The initiative initially applied to postregistration courses in the following areas of clinical practice: accident and emergency; critical care, including intensive care, coronary care and burns; and peri-operative, including peri-anaesthesia, operating theatre and operating department. However, in May of this year I approved the extension of the initiative to include all higher diploma and certificate courses in specialised areas of clinical practice.
These initiatives form part of my overall nurse recruitment-retention strategy, which is currently funded to the level of some £9 million annually. This is in addition to the £8.5 million which was allocated to health agencies for continuing nurse education between 1994 and 1999.