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AS I SIT here on my fifth night shift I contemplate writing this or not. However it is something that has played on my mind ever since I graduated.
I graduated just over two years ago and there was a ceremony with family and friends. We had lots of inspiring speeches on the day and were all very excited about the prospect of becoming a nurse and where our journeys would take us. I was excited and naturally apprehensive.
A nurse’s responsibilities
Throughout nursing studies, we were continuously reminded of the responsibility we held, from timely documentation, to medication administration to close monitoring of a patient you feel is sick or is just “not right”.
As nurses in Ireland we spend up to 13 hours a day with our patients. We get to know them. It is nurses who alert senior members and doctors about a patient’s deterioration or change in condition. This is OUR responsibility. This is OUR job.
Nursing is one of those professions where you must constantly be on top form, put aside whatever tiredness you have from switching from day shifts to nights over a 48-hour period. Or not sleeping the night before as you were so wound up getting into bed after a 13-hour day that you simply couldn’t sleep.
‘I was left alone with 13 patients’
I went into public sector nursing. As a newly qualified nurse, I was left alone with 13 patients on a night shift. I was placed into an Acute Medical Assessment Unit. I was placed in Accident and Emergency and I was sent on ambulance runs. Why? I was used to fill the gap because there was no staff.
Staffing. If you hear this word once in the Irish nursing profession you hear it a million times. A few months after my qualification, having worked on the wards, I began to hate my job. I questioned my career choice. My mood was low and there were days when I came home crying. My parents can vouch for this.
I had no job satisfaction and felt I couldn’t give enough to the patients I was trying to care for. I also felt sorry and ashamed for trying to nurse patients on corridors.
‘I became a patient myself’
During this time, I also became sick. Being a patient in a public Irish hospital has been one of the biggest eye openers for me.
As a patient I had a full on experience of how much pressure nurses are under. I was literally stuck to a hospital bed for 10 days, so I had no option but to sit and watch everything that went on. I saw the continuous needs of patients, from hygiene needs, to medications and toileting assistance.
Shortly after my recovery I decided I would give nursing one last shot and move to the private sector. If I was still unhappy I was going to leave the profession completely and go back to college.
A year later I have left the public sector and (sadly) have never looked back. Naturally there are a lot more resources within the private sector. Staffing is generally better and patients are given topnotch care. But is that not what nursing should be? Is that not what we are trained in? Good, timely, effective care.
Our healthcare system is stuck in a rut
We need more community-orientated healthcare. We need to move on with the times. We need services that can “mind” those at home.
Then we can keep infections under control, cut down on hospital-acquired infections and free up beds. Long-term care waits continue to be a massive problem, hence extra beds are added to corridors. Not only is this completely unsafe but it puts extra pressure on nurses.
Why not focus on opening areas that are solely for the use of those who are well but just awaiting their long-term care setting? Why not train up more healthcare assistants, who can help in nurses’ roles like recording blood pressures? Why not take on more healthcare assistants? Healthcare assistants ease nurses’ workloads.
For me the government is still utterly clueless about healthcare and management. One would think that now, coming out of a recession, with education and the predicament about rising population numbers, that we would have some grasp of the Irish healthcare system or that we would be managing to get on top of things.
But no, it seems to be a constant problem with no improvement and no plans.
Nursing is an incredible profession
I realise I am not making nursing in Ireland attractive. This genuinely makes me feel sad because nursing is a truly incredible profession.
As a nurse now I tell student nurses I meet to keep their head up, to not get bogged down with bad morale or pressures in the public sector. I tell them that there are other opportunities once you qualify. The opportunity to travel or to specialise. Can you blame Irish nurses for wanting to leave and work abroad?
I tell them that the nursing profession is amazing. I have held the hand of a dying person. I have had the privilege and honour to be involved in the care of a patient in their last few hours of life. I have gotten to know patients and their families.
I have had patients open up to me about their personal life and problems they have faced. I have given re-assurance when patients are worried. I have assisted those patients who do not know who they are or where there are.
I have cried at home thinking about a patient who has been diagnosed with the worst news imaginable. I have giggled on night shifts with colleagues over the silliest of things because of pure exhaustion.
Would I change my profession?
Not in a million years. I am writing this piece to give an honest insight into what an Irish nurse can face nowadays, and what I have faced.
I am writing this piece as I appeal to the Irish Government and senior figures to look after our nurses.
The author of this piece has requested to remain anonymous.
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I really can understand why the state has decided on a widespread approach of denying social welfare benefits to some claimants until they put up a strong case.
But, from working in this area, I’m all too familiar with bureaucrats cancelling payments for decent people who, for genuinely valid reasons, are incapable of organising a counter-argument to seemingly arbitrary decisions designed to test them to their limits.
Could we instead have some decision-makers with common sense and the authority to apply it?
@Kieran Magennis: Unless you have a physical or mental disability, welfare should be cancelled after 18 months. Problem solved. Ireland is turning into a welfare state, it must be stopped.
@Regina Farrell: You only need to be well heeled and connected to benefit from the Corporate Welfare state.
You seem to have a serious problem with those on the lower rungs of society. You described them as no more than rats the other day.
@Regina Farrell: Look up, those people who have more than you and have benefited handsomely from the Irish corporate welfare system are laughing at the likes of you. Bet you are really important in your own head.
@Regina Farrell: You do not have a clue about disability as this post show. Trying to link your beliefs to disability is a low trick and persons with disabilities can and do work
@Regina Farrell: Would be interesting to see all you received in state aid in its many and various guises down through the years. You are most likely in your first job as a blueshirt troll, never done a days real work in your life.
Yeah great to leave people desperate with no option but do turn to crime, endangering the safety and security of everyone including the privileged parasites in our society
@Jointheclubtoo: I work in a hospital so I understand what work is. Why would they turn to crime when they can just go out and get a job. People needs to take responsibility for their own lives & stop expecting handouts
@Regina Farrell: you’ve misspelled your name again mrs docherty !
@Regina Farrell: what position do you work in?
@Regina Farrell: And if it was one of your family that was too vulnerable or chaotic to convince bureaucrats?
Please don’t assume there are sensible safety nets or staff with the authority to help them because there aren’t.
@Regina Farrell: i hope you wish to be as ruthless with many employers who are discriminating and not hiring over 50s on the pretence that they need younger more ‘digitally’ native candidates ( cheaper with no experience ) which is a silent problem in Ireland where many many business including blue chip tech players have ‘unofficial’ policies for no over 35′s !! – I know it’s illegal and they put the we dont discriminate on age sexual preference disability etc etc but that to tick the box and make t look like they are complying – we are far too soft and quick to turn a blind eye in Ireland – but rather than support these people you wish to stop them from getting welfare after 18 months too. Pretty narrow minded IMO.
@michelle murphy: Usually standing but occasionally I sit down
@Regina Farrell: I had to give up Ork when my partner was diagnosed with cancer to look after her and our 5 yo daughter. She died 3 months after being diagnosed and I haven’t been able to return to work as yet. I’m a chef so the only shifts I can get round here are nights and weekends, so I can’t get childcare. So what do I do, leave my daughter alone in the house for 10 hours each evening? Your complete lack of understanding and compassion is really telling. You are definitely not a nurse more than likely an administrator. So why don’t you take your narrow minded views and file them under COMPLETE MORON!
@Regina Farrell: we also need to cut civil servants salaries most are totally overpaid and are glorified administrator’s, we can start with the social protection department, staff could be cut by 40% most just sit on their hole
@Regina Farrell: so were you on strike yesterday looking for more money from the government?
@Regina Farrell: hope your never out of work
There are some issues with social welfare but that’s not what this article is about. It proves beyond doubt that we have a government that manages by press release. They are not interested in actually doing any of the hard work or making decisions. They just want to ‘manage’ with their light -touch regulation and essentially privatise everything, including so-called job creation. Much of this Job Bridge crap is a scam
@jamesdecay: Yep this article link talks about this
https://bit.ly/2GnIRgq
@Diogenes: thanks
@jamesdecay: Credit to Eamon Kelly for research and article.
Turas Nua were ok at first when unemployed. I’ve been referred second time.. Part-time and earning ok but need welfare. Very quickly the one threatened me if i didn’t comply she refer me to department. I explained home care can be hard to get hours, I said I was happy with the company I’m with and that I’m investing my time to get experience that will lead me to full-time work..(HSE) Doesn’t care cause she just wants to tick boxes.
I don’t want to waste my time after work doing stupid courses like confidence courses. Perhaps I should apologise for getting a job even though it’s part-time Well if being poorer is one way of getting rid of them may do it Lucky I’m not renting cause if I was id have to live in my car lol the hours I get wouldn’t pay rent anyway
€148,800,000 spent on this. Enough anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of those who got a job, did so without these private companies even helping.
With that money, how many start up business grants could have been given in areas of low unemployment? How many decent courses could have been offered? Springboard are offering a Financial Services course in Letterkenny only. Why not Cork, Kerry or Limerick? Again Springboard is offering Fund Accounting course but only in Dublin and only in the evening. Yet Cork financial companies such as HedgeServ and their ilk are also advertising for junior and senior fund accountants. Why is their no joined up thinking? The ICT courses on offer to graduates who are unemployed is abysmal.
Someone else said it earlier, these private companies are sending people not only for work they have no skills but sending third level educated people for basic IT courses like Word etc. It’s ridiculous.
On another point. Suicides and death from malnutrition has risen exponentially since the Conservative gov in the UK started the same thing. Do we really want to live in such an inhumane society? And before anyone begins the whole ‘they’re all lazy’ bs. Remember in the good times we had an unemployment rate of 3%. The majority of the people on these schemes like Jobpath were in full employment before the recession hit.
@Aine Foley: who owns these companies. First place to look.
@Aine Foley: I was on Springboard course while working part-time. Had to leave the course 3 months before its finish and take a full-time job because Turas Nua had referred. They knew I had nearly finished the course with a promised job starting in a 4 months time. This was going to be a significantly better-paid job compared to that what I took only to survive after the referral. Also, I only got to the parttime job after a back injury for which I had to leave my previous job. I spent two months on sick benefit, got the parttime job, and after a month working parttime a was sent to Turas Nua. Never spent 12 months on claims. So how is it, that they say the scheme is for those unemployed for 12 months or longer?
Next we’ll be privatising prisons, then giving private security companies powers of arrest! It’s already happened in the UK
@John O’Brien: prisons would be great to privatise. Government struggles to deal with the unions.
@HonDeDeise: How’s that worked in the states?
@HonDeDeise: Unions are you nits or just plain stupid. There are so many issues with the prision system and unions are the least of it. They are fighting for their members and the entire system. Of ourse you could never see that.
The HSE costs too much privatise that too, DFB that can go, Gardai, too expensive. Some things are public service not about profit.
@John O’Brien: With police and judiciary well remunerated to keep them at full capacity like in the USA.
150 MILLIONS to opperate the Scheme how many Nurses Would be employed with that 150 M wake up boys before it’s too late
@pat seery: more so 150 million to operate a scheme that the state ALREADY pays public servants to operate through job centres and employment offices !!
Any positive feedback on the ‘People 1st’ job path initiative? As far as I can see, if you want employment and want to get a job, such as cleaning, customer service and hospitality services, this is the road. If you have lifelong skills in other roles, it won’t matter. No matter how skilled or experienced you are, they will push to apply for a job that you are not suited for.
You are obliged to attend a ‘people first’ centre, once a week to browse and seek employment. With no one on one interaction. That only happens once a month. You are told to apply for as many jobs possible, but there is no support there.
@Jaci Black: People First are subcontracted by Seetac
@Jaci Black: if you have life long skills and are unemployed for over a year in this economy then I’m afraid your life long skills don’t matter anymore. Get to work.
@Larry Fitzwell: If your life long occupation is construction and there are no relevant jobs available, they push you to apply for low paying, no contract dead end jobs. There are no career development choices, no training, nothing.
@Jaci Black: I take your point. But the alternative is to sit on the dole having someone else pay your way. So yes, they should be pushed to any means of supporting yourself. I don’t care what it is.
The problem is we are bred into thinking we have a choice.
Oh for God’s sake…unemployment in this country is at 5% just leave it alone….the vast majority of of people want to work and are at work….the cost to the taxpayer here is negligible at best when compared the the numerous cock ups the government has made….water charges, voting machines…Charlie haughey in general…housing…healthcare…we can afford 190 a week for vunerable people and a few scroungers.
SF attacks scheme to put people to work – surprise surprise.
@Anthony Clark: Anti SF poster intentionally omits Fianna Fáil from the narrative to get a dig in….surprise surprise
@Pixie McMullen: Another no profile false name shill banging FG’s drum.
@Anthony Clark: complete d1(k
@Anthony Clark: It doesn’t put people in work it just takes them off the live register to play the numbers…
Firstly, I am not a blue shirt, & secondly, I do not generally favour subcontracting state social roles to private enterprise. Having noted that, there are highly professional employment business’s that might contribute some additional expertise for unengaged persons actually seeking work. For the majority of hard core unemployed, Mainly unskilled, & with less educational background, these private outfits will not be suitable. What is needed is a programme of public employment on basic urban & rural maintenance, via councils & corporations, on a work for welfare concept, that restores a work ethic at a simple level, & with the co- operation of the public service unions. There’s lots to be done everywhere, & it isn’t too complex to get it operating.
@William Kelly: now your post actually makes sense – getting people back to work via community activities makes far more sense than paying private firms over 150 million to get people filling out forms !
This is nothing more than a gravy train with people on board ! Useless idea with useless results
Want them to find a job ? Cut the benefits down low enough where it will pay to work ! It’s a ridiculous country, where you can actually be better off sitting on your ass than out working!
@Shane Murphy: Have you tried paying rent on social welfare, I want a full time job because unemployed people can’t get a place to rent.
@Shane Murphy: Says the no profile, false name shill.
No need to entice companies. Give role for one year and thereafter reduce incrementally as they do all over Europe. Too many lifetime dole recipients bleed the state with no scruples or conscience. While leo is a populist Sinn Fein are in business of defending the world of entitlement
@john mc carthy: An utter load of codswallop John.
@john mc carthy: Real Entitlement is the gravy train surrounding the Children’s hospital.
What would FFG do without the Untermensch they have created to blame the ills of society on. Paying 150 million for a PR exercise and the means to massage the actual figures around unemployment is the prime purpose of these “employment schemes”.
When Social Welfare was set up, it was a fund contributed to by workers to insure themselves against sickness, temporary unemployment and old age. It was never intended that able-bodied people should access it from the cradle to the grave.
government once again going down the same ‘jobs path’ as the uk have done for the last 20 yrs – only this time they are paying 150 million a year to 2 ‘private’ firms to do the job that public sector workers in job centres and employment offices are supposed to do anyway !!! these ‘sanctions’ have been widely used in the uk , they have even used them against severely disabled people , cancer patients and blind people . declaring them as ‘fit to work ‘ or ‘ fit to be able to progress towards looking to return to the employment market ” (their description not mine) when these people can not find work or if they subsequently have to give up the work because they are not capable of doing the job through illness or the work has a negative effect on their health– they get ‘sanctioned’ . these sanctions can be a partial or full loss of benefits for anything up to 6 months , leaving many people without ANY form of income whatsoever . this has been linked to over 10 ,000 deaths among claimants in the uk , some because they can no longer access their medication ,some because of enforced homelessness , and many because they have taken their own lives because they cant see another way out . it is a cruel and unnecessary action to take against anyone – leaving people in need with nothing – and just sums up the way this government and the political classes in ireland think of the citizens of this country .
Why would the govt hire a company that is involved in fraud anyway,they knew this before it came into action,under investigation by the home office in England,whistleblowers refused interviews,English govt refused,like our own shower of tools.
I’m confused I thought was the job on the social welfare dept? Where does the double bobbing come in?
I got my current job through seetec and couldnt be happier
@Paul Todd: GOOD NEWS…That did they find you?
@Paul Todd: Did they get the job or did you?
Slave labour that’s all it Is .the government is only short of putting the cotton pillow cases on KKK and whip them to work
Saving the state money?? Did you read the article, and please refer to PAC if you want to see how much the are actually costing the state.. another clown!
That should read ‘Why is *there no joined up thinking’ and NOT: ‘Why is *their…’ Apologies.
FAS used to cut me off social welfare if I didn’t show for an appointment and that was every week I was with them. I don’t see why people have such a problem with job path, just because it’s a private company? Sure local employment services do the same thing as seetec. People can’t give out about people on the social welfare then give out when there is schemes brought in to get people off social welfare. Just get on with it.
@Nicole Reid: Your completely missing the point Nicole , a little research on the subject wouldn’t do you any harm.
@Nicole Reid: FAAS were actually good, I got a well paid job for 13 years training with them, all their is now is fake courses that do nothing just light window dressing.
What a socialised mess of a place.
Another fine waste of tax payers money, why subcontract this work out to a private company? What does the thousands of office staff in the hundreds of offices around our country actually do??
FF jumping on the SF bandwagon more like, disgrace.
Get up off yer ass your ancestors would be ashamed of you
@Diarmaid O’Riordáin: You are right wing. You are a troll. Your avatar link is broken, so you are an anonymous troll. Your language is crude, so you are an anonymous FF troll who doesn’t even have the courage of your convictions. No, not your criminal convictions; we know about them, your non-existent political ‘convictions’.
Go away.
@Diarmaid O’Riordáin: This is a battle between Willie O’Dea and Sinn Fein for the votes of bums & wasters in Limerick.
FG will earn a lot of votes if they defend this. Saving the state money and, at the very least, inconveniencing the spongers. Surely that 9% figure is as much a reflection of the people that get the jobs as the type of employment. Recruiters work to a similar model in the private sector and I don’t hear anyone complaining.
@Toomasu Sumitsu: I have frieds who were with these people and they tried to get them to take any job, not one they were trained for or was their profession but anything. Another FG trick to outsource a public service and we all know how well they worked so far
@Gary Kearney: Staff in Seetec are trained for only a couple of weeks, what does that tell you.
@Toomasu Sumitsu: how is paying 150 million + to private companies when the state ALREADY has its own job centres and employment offices, saving money ? its just the opposite – its wasting money (nothing new there) there are plenty of work agencies out there that are not paid by the tax payer, as well as state run employment agencies why do we need to pay 2 more ?
@Eric Davies: It’s a sham to move around unemployment numbers, smoke and mirrors.
Everywhere you go there are migrants working in various low skill jobs and good for them for accepting such roles. My issue is there is a certain laziness with some able-body “Job seekers” who will not get up of their backside to take uo these jobs and still expect the State to support them in their selected lifestyle.
@Irish big fellow: The problem is a lack of jobs…
I got sanctioned by Seetec because they stopped sending me out the letters with my appointments on them. I was new to it and I thought that when they stopped sending them out, then I didn’t have to go in because I thought I hadn’t to. They reported me to welfare and yet they had my email address and phone number which they never bothered to use.
I use to go in and did nothing on their computers because I did it all during the week from home. I did suspect that was a reason why they stopped sending the appointment letters out to me… I used the computers to search, they even said I was applying for too many jobs, near the end I as told that after the year was up then I had to do another year and so on until I got a job. I never got a job, the only job they were interested in was their own.
Correct me if I am wrong and maybe I am misreading the article, but it says Turas and Seetec receive €3,718 for each person that secures employment for more than one year. According to Regina Doherty 41,000 people secured employment through the scheme but according to Lisa Chambers only 9% were still in employment after one year. This would imply 3,690 people lasted over a year. Surely these companies should have been paid approx 3,690 x €,3718 = €13.7m for the year and not the €149m . Am I missing something?
@Jim Byrne: *3,690 x €3,718 = €13.7m
@Jim Byrne: If only 3690 (9% of 41,000) people secured employment for over one year and the state paid €149,000,000 for the privilege , it cost the state €40,379 per job placement that lasted over a year.
Unfortunately I’ve seen this firsthand in my own life. Family member is mentally ill and was on job seekers (refuses to go on disability, try tell a crazy person they’re crazy).
Welfare cut off at the recommendation of one of these companies
Sent two cvs out today, if any of u f*cking fine Gael right wing trolls wanna have a go, dont need a half hearted 5h*tty pop up private company by the government, undermining my self worth and treating me less than a Fvcking human being, Get Lost!!!
I got job through seetec I was let go after a year the company I worked for made sure I signed my seetec application form for the financial reward a month before they let me go I can only imagine how often that has happened
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