Cutting places on courses could drive nurses away

WITH already too few qualified nurses in the North to staff our hospitals and provide care in our homes, it has been announced that hundreds of places on nursing courses will be cut this coming year.

Justifying their decision to slash 300 course positions for 2023/2024, the Department of Health have said that a tighter budget made ‘hard choices unavoidable’.

Speaking with a final year class of Health and Social Care students at Omagh’s South West College this week, some of whom are still waiting to hear if they have been accepted into their university courses, they told us about the impact these cuts are likely to have.

Course lecturer, Aislinn Cassidy, began, “By cutting 300 places on courses in the North, we are likely to start creating nurses for export.

“Students will head away to England, Scotland and Wales to get their qualifications, and a good percentage will never come home.”

Aislinn spoke about the difficulty of accepting cuts decided by unelected administrators.

“The financial pressures that have apparently forced the Department of Health’s hand seem to be very immediate, and the cuts are being made by people who are not elected. That makes it very difficult for us to accept.”

Looking towards the future, Aislinn noted that, while the decision to reduce course numbers might seem prudent in the present, it will probably prove short-sighted in years to come.

“In the long run, this will not look so good,” said Aislinn.

“The reality is that a good chunk of our nurses are coming up to retirement age, and they will have to be replaced.

“If we, as a society, are not generating enough nurses, which means having sufficient places of courses, this is going to cost us a lot.

“An aging population requires more care, and, if we are to care for them, we need more – not less – nurses. That much is quite simple.”

As a part of a settlement to resolve the nurses strikes of 2019/2020, the Department of Health pledged to increase the number of student places by 300 each year, for three years.

Roisin Bradley, deputy head of Health and Social Care Department, said the 300 place cut represents a break in that bargain.

“What the health service has endured throughout Covid-19 is immeasurable.

“The physical and psychological pressures were immense, in caring not only for Covid-19 patients, but the rest of their patients as well.

“Regardless of whether they were nurses or porters or whatever,” said Roisin, “they received no financial recognition at all for these increased pressures. It was totally overlooked.

“These people were the link person between dying patients and their families.

“Can you imagine that stress?

“So, the fact that they received no financial reward for what they went through puts even more importance on their promise to increase nurse places as was agreed following the strikes of 2019/2020.

“By reducing the number by 300, they are breaking that promise, and making conditions worse for both patients and nurses.”