A significant 22 per cent of all registered nurses were inactive by the end of last year, it has been revealed.
This emerges at a time when the Irish Nurses Organisation has warned that the health system can not cope with the level of admissions expected due to a feared major swine flu pandemic here, owing to HSE cutbacks and letting nurses on short-term contracts go.
Of the inactive 22 per cent (19,610) of nurses, some 827 nurses were unemployed.
There was a six per cent (1,073) increase in the number of inactive nurses in 2008 compared to the previous year, according to An Bord Altranais’s registration statistics for 2008.
Although 88,224 nurses were registered in 2008 compared to 85,782 in 2007 (a three per cent increase) only 68,614 were active compared to 67,245 in 2007 (a two per cent increase). Read More…
