Student nurses in UHG told only a ‘tiny proportion’ of graduates would be employed

Student nurses in University Hospital Galway were told that only a “tiny proportion of the graduating class” would be given employment by the HSE, ahead of graduation in a few weeks time.

That’s according to Sinn Féin’s Education spokesperson Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, who accused the actions of Fine Gael and the HSE as amounting to “Groundhog Day” as the government cut off employment opportunities for newly-graduated nurses as part of their recruitment ban.

He directed the blame at the government and the HSE while further accusing them of “driving young nurses, doctors, and other medical professionals to emigrate.”

The Cork man claimed that it was “even more bizarre” due to there being no equivocal freeze on the employment of agency or temporary staff.

He stated that this is despite the fact that the practice of employing agency and temporary staff has “cost the health service €2.1 billion since Fine Gael took control of the health service in 2011.”

Sinn Féin’s Galway West General Election Candidate Mairéad Farrell also voiced her strident disapproval of this apparent recruitment ban, claiming that UHG is “in need of nurses and it makes no sense to turn away highly-skilled, well-trained graduate nurses.”

She called for the “recruitment ban” to be overturned when it came to full time staff and decried that it made no sense to implement a recruitment freeze in the midst of a recruitment and retention crisis.

Farrell proclaimed that there is a variety of areas where “savings can be made, and the waste of financial resources can be tackled”, but she emphasised the importance of the employment of full-time medical staff.