Hospital crisis: Severe shortage of nurses

Friday 23rd January 2009, 2:59PM GMT.

THERE is a nursing crisis in the Island’s hospitals as a result of staff shortages and poor pay levels.

Nurses are working ‘horrendously’ long hours and many are breaking down in tears because they cannot give patients the care they need. Latest figures released by the Royal College of Nursing showed 64 vacancies in general and acute nursing personnel as well as 19 in mental health services.

The nursing unions say that not only have patients being turned away from elective surgery but others have been discharged early when they should not have been. This has led to readmissions and in one case the patient was rushed into the intensive care unit.

Health Minister Jim Perchard (pictured) has acknowledged the crisis and said that it is going to have to be addressed by his colleagues on the Council of Ministers. However, he said the staffing situation within the hospitals was particularly severe right now as a respiratory bug has led to increased admissions and also meant that many staff were off sick.

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1
Mark G

January 23, 2009 at 3:44 pm

The reason they are short of Nurses is due to the lack of training given to local residents who wish to train as Nurses.

At present the training is only avl to an handful of people in the hospital and the majority of these are non local – unqualified people.

Instead of spending the money on training local residents they prefer to spend it on importing Nurses from the UK and abroad and also employing bank staff.

While i am not against importing skills or help i disagree with the locals been pushed to one side while un-qualified people pass them over all the time.

There are a lot of staff in the health service more than willing to be trained to nurse level.

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2
ann

January 23, 2009 at 3:52 pm

Increase pay for nurses and increasae the length of time the ‘J’ cat nurses can remain on the island.

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3
Mogit

January 23, 2009 at 4:01 pm

Correct me if i’m wrong, but as manual workers, nurses have been told to “get realistic” by Terry in respect of pay awards. Now Jimbo says they cannot recruit new staff due to poor pay levels,is it too much to hope that these so-called professionals get their act together, once and for all, no wonder we are in such a bl***y mess!!!

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4
the future

January 23, 2009 at 5:58 pm

The pay nurses get after studying to get a degree in Nursing is lees than a Police officer gets as a raw recruit.

Nurses work very unsocial hours and keep the hospital running 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year. The working conditions are poor, not even BUPA !!

Nurses work 24 hours and the canteen is only open in office hours.

You don’t get tine off to go to the dentist.

Its simply reward versus qualifications and stress. The rewards are poor and the stress is great, you have to study for years to get very little in comparison to the rewards from other professions.

There are more than a few nurses who would consider coming back to nursing if the conditions and pay were better.

As the pound slides in value we may also lose our imported staff.

Also the vast majority of our nursing staff were recruited when the pay was better, they will retiring sooner than you think.

This crisis will not get better any time soon unless pay is increased.

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5
jacqui

January 23, 2009 at 6:16 pm

Nurses are hjghly qualified professionals most have degrees ,the training period is a minimum of three years .They should be given the respect they deserve, perhaps starting with better pay and conditions.

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6
Graeme

January 23, 2009 at 6:19 pm

I work as a volunteer in a large UK hospital and the same thing has happened here. The winter virus, plus a shortage of trained nurses have led to severe conditions. Agency nurses are being used and of course cost the earth.

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7
J G

January 23, 2009 at 6:36 pm

Nurses, ambulance workers – these are people who have made their vocation a caring one and cares for the ill and saves lives. They have to be worth more, and it is a shocking endictment on the Island that within the period of one week both sectors are voicing their disapproval. They have trained and studied and are worth more.

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8
Aimee

January 23, 2009 at 6:43 pm

I in septmeber finished university with my degree in nursing (adult) and was told although jersey born i could not work in jersey for up to 12 months as a staff nurse due to lack of experiance. Therefore am working in the UK. I am already drug, IV assessed and can take bloods. Unfortuantly Jersey would not offer me a job as a nurse which i am now wondering why as they are so desperate for qualified nurses?

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9
dave brown

January 23, 2009 at 6:43 pm

the worse jersey gets, high rents , and general cost of living, why would anyone want to apply for a job as a nurse?

and again we have failed to train locals, but why would young people want to do a job that may not cover a mortgage.

all the staff at the general do a wonderfull job, i would say the people of jersey are with you all the way.

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10
Hannah

January 27, 2009 at 4:29 pm

I am a nurse who recently left Jersey and although it saddens me to hear this,I’m not at all surprised. I now work in Canada,my husband looks after the kids and on one salary we are doing nicely.We also get appreciated and remunerated appropriately for what we do. even with 2 incomes coming in we were watching every penny in Jersey and we weren’t big spenders by any stretch of the imagination.I t was a hard decision to move from Jersey after 7 years but in the end it was the right one and I hope that someone wakes up and smeels the coffee or you’ll have even fewer nurses adn the ones left will be totalloy exhausted and demoralised

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