Student nurses have said it is “an insult” to ask them to work for free through the coronavirus pandemic when they are putting their lives on the line every day.

It comes after the Dáil heard that students are being used as “slave labour” to cover sick leave for more senior staff members.

Around 4,000 student nurses have been working in Irish healthcare settings during the pandemic, earning an allowance of €50 per week.

Solidarity/People Before Profit has tabled a motion calling for €14 per hour rate students were briefly paid at the start of the pandemic to be reinstated.

Student pay

On The Hard Shoulder this evening, fourth year student nurse Ralph said he has essentially been doing the job of a fully qualified nurse throughout his placement.

“Tending to patients, waking them up, getting them up, making sure they have their medications and performing any medical jobs that need to be done,” he said. “Basically, looking after them for the entire day.

“It is what a fully-qualified nurse would do essentially and I am doing that for absolutely free.

“I am not being paid at all for any of this and what I got for my troubles was a positive test for COVID towards the end of it.”

Plugging the gaps

He said staff shortages mean there is not opportunity for learning, with student nurses “used to plug the gaps left vacant by healthcare assistants who are going off sick from COVID.”

“At the end of the day, if we mess up or do something wrong because we are so stressed or overworked and a mistake is made, potentially someone could become seriously ill or even worse,” he said.

“I think, knowing that we are doing all of that stuff, we are getting COVID, we are just completely and utterly stressed, which is the key word, and we are not getting paid for that, I think is just an insult to student nurses – some of whom are literally putting their lives on the line for this.”

"Flat to the mat"

Meanwhile, final-year student nurse Áine said she is on her ‘supernumerary placement’ which means that she is supposed to be there, “purely to be taught, to observe and to learn.”

“When the hospital environment is so busy, when the staff are so stressed, the opportunities for learning decrease significantly and the opportunity to ask questions disappears,” she said.

“You are there as an extra pair of hands and you’re used as an extra pair of hands so we should have some sort of financial compensation for that.

“It is a great honour to work in the health service at this time when the country really, really needs healthcare workers but it is an insult not to pay student nurses when we are working 12-hour days or 13-hour days from 7:30am until 8:30pm.

“From minute one, you are flat to the mat working and it is labour and we are asking to be paid for the work that we are doing.”