Racist abuse of healthcare workers a 'new low'
Collins Chaney/ Photos On Imno Nurse Paediatric Mittee Health Joint A Meeting Picture: Represented The Sylvia Gareth At Chambers Wednesday
A string of racist attacks on nurses outside a busy hospital has been described as a "new low" by the Taoiseach.
Leo Varadkar has been told of a number of incidents during which protestors targeted nurses on their way to and from work at a busy Dublin teaching hospital over a number of days.
It comes as an Oireachtas committee heard that medical staff are afraid to go to work, with one children’s emergency department nurse detailing personal experience of parents spitting at her, throwing objects, and threatening to stab her as pressures rise in the overcrowded hospital conditions.
During a private meeting yesterday, the head of the Irish Nursing and Midwives Organisation (INMO), Phil Ní Sheaghdha, informed the Taoiseach that the representative body has received several complaints from foreign national members who have been subjected to ongoing verbal attacks of a racist nature by protesters in recent weeks.
Mr Varadkar said the Government will fight against such "appalling" attacks.
"While there is no excuse for any form of racism, under any circumstances, it really is a low blow and a new low if healthcare workers, to whom we are so grateful for having come here, are now facing protests and racism from those who do not believe they are welcome here," he told the Dáil.
The Irish Medical Organisation’s Dr Laura Finnegan told the health committee that assaults, including gender-based and racist assaults, are common, especially for younger doctors who work nights.
"We depend on a lot of non-Irish doctors to support our healthcare system," Dr Finnegan told the committee. "We would be absolutely lost without them.
"They are trying to take care of patients and support our healthcare system. It is an awful situation.
"I have been there when colleagues have been abused in front of me, and it is a very difficult scenario."
This comes against a backdrop of 5,593 assaults on nurses and midwives alone between January 2021 and October of last year in public hospitals.
Sylvia Chambers, who has been a nurse for 18 years, said she is now looking at alternative careers and said she is quite simply afraid to go to work.
“When a knock comes on the door, it’s a nurse that opens the door to that verbal aggression and sometimes it can be physical,” she said.
"I have grown men, 6 ft 4, towering over me, throwing objects at me on a daily basis. I do not feel safe going to work.”
She told the committee that this is aggravated by overcrowding in the hospital, with parents waiting up to 10 or 12 hours for help for their children.
“At night-time from 2am onwards, we only have two doctors,” she said. "Sometimes we could have up to 60, 70 patients waiting at that time with two doctors, it’s not feasible."
As a senior nurse, and INMO representative on site, she is often called to help other nurses when potentially dangerous situations arise. She described having to leave seriously ill children to do this.
“In the last 18 months, we have had 30 nurses resign from our emergency department alone,” she said.
Speaking in the Dáil, Mr Varadkar raised concerns that "racists and the far-right will blame whatever problem the country is facing on migrants," whether that is a lack of housing or long hospital waiting times. He said politicians should "not play into those arguments".
"None of us in this House wish to see the issue of race or migration become centre stage in our politics, most of all somebody like me, given my colour and family background, and the fact I am biracial," he said.