New figures show that 60% of healthcare workers who contracted COVID-19 are still sick.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has told the Oireachtas COVID-19 committee that 4,823 healthcare staff remain ill.

As of midnight on Saturday, 8,161 healthcare workers had contracted the virus – just short of a third of all the cases in Ireland.

The INMO said one-in-ten of the country’s cases involved nurses – with 88% of those contracting the virus in work.

Childcare

Meanwhile, the organisation is warning that many have been forced to use up their annual leave to take care of their children, while others are paying over the odds for childminders while they are at work.

Addressing the committee this afternoon, INMO General secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha said nurses feel abandoned by the State.

“There has to be preferential treatment for frontline healthcare workers in order for them to continue to maintain their employment contract,” she said.

“We still are not satisfied that proper consultation has taken place with the frontline worker who is reliant on the State for part of their childcare requirements.

“Their words are that they feel that they have been abandoned. They have been applauded and they have been abandoned.”

Survey

Ms Ni Sheaghdha presented a survey of over 1,800 INMO members to the committee which found that:

• 62% have taken annual leave to care for children
• 22% are using paid childminders while at work
• 10% are using grandparents to care for children
• 69% did not have a partner available to provide childcare

It found that workers who were using childminders were paying over €100 above the usual amount so they could continue to come to work.

The INMO is calling for healthcare workers to be reimbursed for any additional childcare costs they incurred during COVID-19 – and compensated for any annual leave they used to care for their children.

Ms Ní Sheaghdha said members also need priority access to childcare when it resumes.

“There has to be preferential treatment for frontline healthcare workers in order for them to continue to maintain their employment contract,” she said.

“We still are not satisfied that proper consultation has taken place with the frontline worker who is reliant on the State for part of their childcare requirements.

“Their words are that they feel that they have been abandoned. They have been applauded and they have been abandoned.”

Burnout

Meanwhile, SIPTU organiser Paul Bell said there is a danger of healthcare staff burning out with work and childcare pressures in the coming weeks.

Some of the evidence shocked committee members, including TD Brid Smith.

“This is probably the most astonishing evidence we have heard in front of the COVID committee,” she said.

“The hairs stood up on the back of my neck when Phil Ni Sheaghdha said, ‘we were applauded and we were abandoned.’”

The committee is hearing from creche owners this afternoon ahead of their reopening on Monday.

With reporting from Shane Beatty ...