A HOSPITAL for older people run by the Health Service Executive (HSE) in the northeast regularly has to depend on care assistants to do the work of nurses due to a staffing crisis, it has emerged.
The director of nursing at St Oliver Plunkett Hospital in Dundalk complained to officials in the HSE earlier this year that on two occasions there were no nurses at all to provide overnight cover on an 18-bed respite unit in the hospital.
In her letter, Kay O’Keeffe said this happened on two occasions between the end of December 2007 and the end of January 2008 when agency nurses phoned in sick “leaving no nurse on the unit from 10pm until 8am the next morning”. She wrote: “I’m sure you will agree that this is totally inadequate and unsatisfactory to safeguard patient care.”
The correspondence also notes that between December 31st, 2007 and March 16th last more than 550 nursing hours had to be covered by care attendant staff.
“The issue of care attendants covering for nurses is unsatisfactory and unsafe due to their lack of professional knowledge and skills,” it said.
It added that if no staff could be found for the respite unit in the hospital, beds would have to close as they became vacant and new patients needing respite would have to be sent to the private sector.
The Louth Fine Gael TD, Fergus O’Dowd, who obtained the correspondence under the Freedom of Information Act, said it was an appalling situation if no qualified nurse was on duty on a unit. He feared the situation was similar in other units caring for the elderly.
The HSE in the northeast said the difficulty was due to the non availability of sufficient numbers of nursing and support staff either internally or from agencies. “These difficulties reflect a national shortage in this area.”
It confirmed a decision to relocate the respite service from St Oliver’s hospital to a private nursing home for three months from June 2nd. “This decision has been made due to difficulties in recruiting temporary staff to replace short-term vacancies and this difficulty is not unique to Louth,” it said. When care attendants covered nursing hours in any unit they would work under the guidance of a nurse in another unit, the HSE added.
“On a very small number of occasions when an agency nurse was unable to report for night duty every effort was made to source an alternative agency nurse, however, when there was no nurse available, arrangements were made for the day nurse to remain on duty until 10pm and also an additional care attendant was called in for duty,” it said.