THE GOVERNMENT has rowed back on plans to require student nurses and midwives to work in hospitals without pay during their mandatory 36-week placement in hospitals in their fourth year.
The Government last month announced plans to eliminate these payments from 2015 and in the meantime to reduce them progressively over the next three years.
However, Tánaiste and Minister for Health Mary Coughlan said yesterday that there was to be “a review of the rationale for the total abolition of clinical placement payments to student nurses”. She said that, having considered the matter, there was “a strong argument in favour of retaining some level of payment to student nurses”.
However, plans to reduce the level of payments made to student nurses and midwives over the coming years will remain in place.
Unions representing nurses, said the move did not go far enough and could represent “an election stunt”. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said it noted the Tánaiste’s statement. Deputy general secretary Dave Hughes said the union wanted a reversal of all the cuts announced in December.
A planned march to the Department of Health scheduled for next Wednesday would go ahead, he said. Siptu said the Tánaiste’s move offered little comfort to student nurses and midwives. Nursing official with the union Louise O’Reilly said: “The rates of pay for student nurses working on rostered placement arose from an agreement with the nursing unions and this must be respected.
“The Department of Health did not consult with nurses representatives on this matter and Mary Coughlan’s statement does not give any indication that this will improve. Her announcement may be little more than an election stunt from a party which opinion polls indicate will not be in government in a few weeks.”
Ms Coughlan said she had asked secretary general of the Department of Health Michael Scanlan to carry out the new review.
It is understood the review will focus only on the plan to abolish completely the payments from 2015. No timescale for the review was set out yesterday by Ms Coughlan.
About 3,500 student nurses and midwives took part in demonstrations at 13 hospitals around the country on Wednesday against the planned cuts as unions promised to make them a major issue in the general election.
General secretary of the INMO Liam Doran said earlier this week that nurses would not vote for parties that did not pledge to reverse the cuts.
Unions have warned that there could be industrial action over the cuts from next month if the plans were not reversed.