A serious shortage of registered nurses was causing early burn-out among overworked hospital staff, the SIPTU national nursing convention heard yesterday.
"There is a massive shortage of nurses on the ground," said Ms Mary Durkin, who chaired a session on the impact of reform on the nursing and health services.
Delegates were told that overcrowding, coupled with understaffing, was causing problems in almost all hospitals.
Ms Durkin said nurses were being blamed when things went wrong and being brought before hospital disciplinary committees. "But why should they be blamed when management is refusing to listen to their complaints and observations?"
Mr Oliver McDonagh, national nursing official, said people were on trolleys in hospital corridors for days at a time. The worst-hit hospitals were in cities, including a number in Dublin, Cork University Hospital and Galway Regional Hospital.
"This creates a very stressful situation for the nurses. They are in the firing line when it comes to the complaints. It is happening more and more."
The union wants a meeting with the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, to discuss the issues. Mr McDonagh said the situation of understaffing had been created because the Department of Health had not approved the training of enough nurses in the past. The situation was exacerbated by the new nursing diploma programme.
"The Department of Health claims they have filled those vacancies. But that is not the situation that we see. We want registered nurses in those hospitals."
Ms Durkin, a member of An Bord Altranais, said there had been a lot of anger among delegates because of the lack of action in this area. The union's National Nursing Council would formulate its own policy, which it would present to the Minister. The main thrust of this would be the development of criteria for minimum staffing in each hospital.
She said a new charter for nurses should be drawn up. "We would like to see a nurses' charter accompany the existing patients' charter to get the balance right. The public are more informed now, which is a good thing, but a number of developments, including the Freedom of Information Act, means that our standards will be called to task."
Mr McDonagh said that in an effort to attract more people back to nursing the profession should be more "family-friendly". At present, nurses had onerous rosters, worked considerable overtime and were frequently called in to work because of understaffing.