There is an impending nursing staff crisis , according to the junior minister for health, Kathleen Lynch, as more than one thousand nurses are due to retire from service by the month of June.
The junior minister has stated that the HSE is making proactive attempts to encourage those nurses eligible to retire to stay on, and is also asking those who emigrated to return to the country and work here instead.
Ms. Lynch confirmed that she has briefed the Taoiseach on the matter, and she has reportedly described the situation as ‘very challenging.’
If the prediction comes to pass, such exodus of nurses would have a crippling effect on an already strained service.
A recent report by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) revealed that most Irish hospitals and dangerously and perennially understaffed in their nursing rosters