A TRAWL is being conducted by the Health Service Executive to ensure no other unregistered nurses are practising in the State, the Minister for Health James Reilly said yesterday.
His comments came just days after it emerged an unregistered nurse had been working at a sexual assault treatment unit in Letterkenny General Hospital. She had been removed from the register for non-payment of fees.
Some 25 people who had been treated at the unit after being sexually abused or raped were contacted last week and informed of the development amid fears it could make the prosecution of their abusers more difficult.
The HSE has begun an investigation to establish how the information that the nurse had been taken off the register in 2009, which had been passed to it, did not seem to reach Letterkenny hospital.
Speaking after addressing a conference organised by An Bord Altranais, the regulatory body for the nursing profession, in Dublin yesterday, Dr Reilly said he hadn’t been made aware of any other situations in which unregistered nurses were practising.
“Certainly we checked out immediately when this came to light that there were no other nurses in that area of activity, in sexual assault treatment units, that were unregistered and there is a trawl going on right throughout the HSE and the wider service to ensure that there are no nurses practising who aren’t registered,” he said.
The conference focused on how nurses can demonstrate they are maintaining their competence, something which will be a requirement under new legislation currently going through the Oireachtas.
Doctors have been required since the beginning of May to show they are keeping up to date and maintaining their competence.