‘I don’t think nurses are taken seriously in Ireland’: Student nurses speak up

At the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s annual conference in Killarney on Friday, the Minister for Health suggested the union was sending out an overly negative message about the plight of nurses in the Irish health service.

Three student nurses setting out on their career talk about how they view their futures.

Tammy O’Donovan

First-year general student nurse at UCC

Coming in as a mature student I probably won’t be going abroad to practise, and my aim is to make the experience in Ireland as good as possible. You have to use your own experience to make it the best you can. I’d like to play my part in improving things so that other students want to stay when they qualify.

I’m only in first year, so I am looking to get as much experience of different areas as I can before deciding what area I want to work in. We’re kind of placed in all different specialties throughout our four years, so I’ve had a surgical placement and a medical placement. And I’ll be doing a mental health placement starting soon.

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It can be [daunting] at times to hear about understaffing and other issues but that’s one of the reasons I’m here, to learn about the work and the union. There is a lot of support.

I love the work.

Miriam Hanlon

Internship student at Munster Technological University, based in University Hospital Kerry

You can see the understaffing and the effects it has on our colleagues. And being a student after coming through Covid had its own challenges as well. It’s very motivating and inspiring to come here and see the work our colleagues do to try to make a better working environment for everyone.

We have to support each other as best we can and use the resources that are available to us.

I’d definitely consider [Australia], even for the experience. One or two years. The pay and working conditions, the allocation of patient caseload, everything is so different.

But you always want to come home, there’s really nothing like home or the Irish nurses, the doctors – we have a great community in the hospital, and you don’t want to be pushed out because of the conditions that are there at the moment. Hopefully things will change and we won’t have to go abroad.

Niamh McCormack

Third-year general nursing student at the University of Galway

I see myself going abroad. I don’t really see a future for myself financially, in terms of being able to stay in Ireland permanently.

I think a lot of us don’t want to go but we feel it’s necessary for a better life, just to set ourselves up financially, to be able to come back and afford the cost of living.

I know nurses who would have gone abroad. And I also know nurses who have gone abroad and come back. And you just hear the stories: the better conditions and the work-life balance.

They’re important. You do hear about a lot of burnout here when you talk with other nurses. I don’t think nurses are taken seriously in Ireland.