Northwest health staff discuss nursing cuts in Brussels (17/12/08)
December 17, 2008 at 12:13 pm Leave a comment
Healthcare professionals from the North West were facilitated by Marian Harkin MEP to attend the launch of a European Commission consultation process. ‘A Health Workforce for Europe’, in Brussels this week. Pictured at Dublin Airport prior to departure were: Michael Shannon, HSE and formerly Director of Nursing Sligo General; Anne Gallen, Nursing & Planning Unit, HSE Ballyshannon; Marian Harkin MEP; Edel McSharry, St. Angela’s College Lough Gill and Geraldine Murray, Head of Nursing & Health Sciences, GMIT Castlebar.
The reduction in undergraduate nurse education places in hospitals across the Northwest is set to cause severe problems for people’s health prospects in the region and goes ‘directly against EU health policy’, according to participants at an open forum on health workers in Brussels this week.
Healthcare professionals from nurse training units in Castlebar, Ballyshannon and Sligo were among those who attended the launch of a consultation process aimed at tackling health staff shortages across Europe. To mark the event, the European Commission launched a Green Paper outlining how to maintain a sufficient health workforce in the face of an ageing population. It recommends increased efforts to educate and retain young nurses, together with investment in measures to encourage mature nurses back to the workforce.
Irish MEP Marian Harkin, who hosted the Northwest delegation, says this advice is in ‘marked contrast’ to the government’s policy of stringent cuts to nurse education courses. ‘Training places in St Angela’s College in Sligo have been slashed by 25 per cent for general nursing and 40 per cent for intellectual disability nursing,’ she said. ‘Together with cuts at nurse training units in Ballyshannon and GMIT Castlebar, this will reduce the student nurse intake in the Northwest to a level which will cause severe problems.’
The Independent MEP is lobbying the Minister for Health to adhere to EU health policy and reinstate nurse training places ‘as a vital measure in ensuring the future health of the people of the Northwest’.
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