Sir, – Anumber of points are being conveniently glossed over by the HSE in its supposedly innovative move to employ recently graduated nurses at a reduced pay rate (Home News, December 21st).
The HSE seeks to portray this as a virtuous endeavour on its behalf in providing an employment lifeline to un-needed and surplus-to-requirement nursing graduates. This is very far from the truth. The number of nursing places available to students each year is fixed, currently at 1,570 nationally, on the basis of workforce planning models by the Department of Health and the HSE.
Thus those graduating each September are the numbers needed to allow the health service to function based on the HSE’s own planning models. It is not, therefore, providing an employment opportunity out of any allegiance to our graduates, but rather seeking to employ the professionals that it desperately needs at a knockdown rate.
The suggestion also that these graduates need this period of two years to gain the necessary experience to function as registered practitioners is also disingenuous. During the four years of their undergraduate training, nursing students spend 81 weeks in the practice environment, culminating in a 36-week internship at the end of their fourth year. There are few other degree courses which provide such a level of work placement practice in preparation for graduation. These graduates are, on completion of their degree, extremely fit for purpose.
In reality they will be expected to, and indeed are able to, function as fully autonomous professionals immediately post-graduation. Again, the HSE is attempting to obtain the professionals it needs at a fraction of the price.
Finally, it is suggested that the “market” is dictating this intervention by the HSE. This demonstrates, however, a deliberately limited understanding of market economics. Should the HSE wish to open the employment of nurses and other health professionals to full market forces it should prepare itself to pay our highly expert nurses in intensive care units, emergency departments and operating theatres vast multiples of what it currently pays them.
One need look no further than the US, where a market-driven health service routinely pays well qualified nurses in excess of $100,000. I do not hear anyone in the HSE keen to engage in this “market” discussion. This action by the HSE is therefore a thinly veiled attempt to get well-trained and qualified professionals on the cheap. – Yours, etc,