The overwhelming majority of nurses fear the current level of staffing in the health service is putting patient safety at risk. 

Safe staffing was the biggest issue highlighted in a recent survey completed by members of the Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation (INMO). 

Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, INMO Director of Services Tony Fitzpatrick described dissatisfaction as widespread within the health service. 

“Among nursing, 76% of respondents said that their current staffing levels and skill did not meet the required clinical and patient demands in their work area,” he said. 

“A lot of them, 92%, expressed concern about patient safety. 

“This was reflected in midwifery as well where 81% of midwives outlined that the [ratio] which is one midwife to 29.5 births… was not being implemented in their workplace.” 

Mr Fitzpatrick said “safe staffing saves lives” and is the only way to ensure that patients receive the quality of care they should be entitled to. 

He added that Irish hospitals need more staff and the best place to measure that is “actually at the bedside”. 

A nurse standing in a corridor. 

“You’ll see that there’s significant numbers in midwifery alone where they will account that there’s over 9,000 midwives on the register but there’s only 50% of them working in patient facing roles,” he said. 

“So, the reality is that we’ve sufficient numbers of nurses and midwives on the register but they’re not actually practising as nurses and midwives and they’re not involved in direct care provision. 

“The reality in the HSE is we’ve had a moratorium restricting the recruitment of nurses and midwives.” 

University Hospital Limerick. Image: Karlis D / Alamy

Today, the Department of Health ordered a review into whether the Mid-West needs a second Emergency Department following a significant number of reports of poor quality patient care. 

Mr Fitzpatrick said politicians should never have shut local Emergency Departments in the region. 

“If you close down Emergency Departments in Nenagh and Ennis and direct all the traffic to one small Emergency Department in Limerick without putting in the beds and infrastructure, you’re going to create this problem,” he said. 

“That’s why I have to highlight that it is their fault.”

Main image: A nurse and a patient.