Nurse aren't worth the minimum wage?

steddyeddy

I can’t believe this isn’t getting more attention. Under the policy that was introduced in 2012 graduate nurse will make 22,000 a year. At 6.49 an hour this is less than the minimum wage. Nurses are amongst the hardest working people in the country and provide an essential service. In the light of the 80 million Irish water corruption (that’s what it is) how can we justify paying the people who look after us and our family members when we are sick less than the minimum wage?

Student medics made the call outside the Dáil yesterday during a major protest against Dr Reilly’s controversial nurse graduate scheme.

Under the policy, which was imposed last year after being revealed by the Irish Examiner in November 2012, new nurses entering the system have seen their expected salaries slashed to below the minimum wage.

Despite previously receiving a starting wage of €26,000 which rises over subsequent years, new graduates are now given just €22,000 in their first 12 months, rising slightly until the €26,000 target is hit after three years’ service.

This rate means new nurses receive just €6.49 an hour — lower than the €8.65 minimum wage.

Dr Reilly has repeatedly defended the rate, saying it includes further education, and should instead be seen as a chance for graduates to gain more experience.



However, the nursing profession has ridiculed the policy, claiming it is forcing graduates towards emigration or out of the health service completely.

Speaking during a Union of Students in Ireland protest on the issue outside the Dáil yesterday, those affected said the situation means working in a pub or starting again in another country is now a more attractive prospect than taking up nurse positions in the health service.

“This is insulting to the profession and the individual who goes into it,” said graduate nurse Sean Kearns, 22, from Tuam, Co Galway.

In the past 12 months, Mr Kearns has worked placements in oncology, surgical, medical, maternity, paediatric, and emergency department wards — a move he said makes a mockery of claims that nurse graduates are not worth the minimum wage.

“It is not uncommon for interns and graduates to be left alone with 13 patients,” he said. “In Canada the starting salary is €43,000 or so. In America, nursing is one of the best paid positions at the start, and in England they’re crying out for nurses. Of 65 in my class over 20 have emigrated, while quite a few have gone back to shops and pubs. We feel there is just no choice.”

Catriona Quinlan, a 19-year-old second-year student nurse at Trinity College from Ballaghadarreen, Co Mayo, said the reality is “nurses who are qualified are going into retail and working in shops, because you earn more money with less stress”.

USI campaigns officer Paddy Guiney said the group will hold a rally outside the HSE’s Dublin City office on Thursday, February 20, to further highlight the issue.

A number of student nurses said the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s “sold us out” by agreeing to the cut-price graduate salaries last summer, after initially opposing the policy.



However, INMO student and new graduates officer Dean Flanagan, who attended yesterday’s protest, said without the union’s negotiations the pay rate would have been even worse.

He said the INMO has filed a complaint against the HSE with the Labour Relations Commission on the below-minimum wage issue in recent weeks.

* Follow the USI campaign on Twitter at #everyonelovesnurses © Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

wolfpawnat

It's things like this that have me relieved I left nursing in college. It's insane. They are now back to a 40 hour working week, dealing with drunks, druggies, absolutely horrible people AND they are not being given enough to deal with it. The Health system is a joke. Frontline services, be it staff or facilities are being cut left right and centre to keep the overpaid exactly that. When I had my daughter last July, there were midwives dealing with people too classless for Jeremy Kyle abusing them for trying to get them to look after their own children. Reporting them for abuse for waking them up. You know all the nurses at some stage or another has to deal with that crap.

These are people who wash blood and poop off people day in, day out. Who take abuse that most people would not be able to suffer through. They effectively worker ants of hospitals.

UrbanSea

An absolute piss take. The union that okayed it were total hypocrites, pick on the ones coming in and they're fine.

hmmm

I don't understand the calculations - how many hours do nurses work?

22000/52/40 = 10.57 per hour for a 40 hour week.

22 grand for a starting salary straight out of college sounds pretty decent to me.

hfallada

I dont find how low the wage is the most shocking part. But the fact the nurses union sold them out to protect its older members interests. And yet unions wonder why their membership is declining, when they only serve the interests of the minority of its members. Unions are built on greed and not to protect the most vulnerable anymore. The complete opposite of what they were founded to do.

Ideo

Is that hourly rate the after tax rate that they earn or something? Those numbers are definitely skewed..

22000/6.49 = 3389 / 52 = 65
So nurses work 65 hours a week now? sometimes I hate this country - the unions would happily skew the numbers just to back up their agenda

Sir Arthur Daley

hmmm wrote: »

I
22 grand for a starting salary straight out of college sounds pretty decent to me.

Is that gross wage though?

Stavros Murphy

Nurses actually do stuff. The world no longer values people who do stuff. People who entertain, or talk, or write software or trade shares are valued. People who work, and get dirty, are considered as having little value, generally. Fcuked up world we live in.

hfallada

hmmm wrote: »

I don't understand the calculations - how many hours do nurses work?

22000/52/40 = 10.57 per hour for a 40 hour week.

22 grand for a starting salary straight out of college sounds pretty decent to me.

But your not factoring in the cost of going to college for 4 years. To earn less than someone packing shelves in Lidl.

lukesmom

A complete and utter disgrace the amount they are being paid. For the work they do they should be on double the rate they are on. It sickens me to see us lose our nurses to the UK, Canada and Australia just because they will will be more appreciated financially and morally there. Yes they earn in their fourth year placement but they work so hard for the pittance pay. Undervalued and underpaid i don't blame a lot of them for flying the hell out of here.

hmmm

hfallada wrote: »

But your not factoring in the cost of going to college for 4 years. To earn less than someone packing shelves in Lidl.

You sound very entitled and patronising. Someone in Lidl packing shelves for years while you were in college is worth a lot more than you right at that moment where you come out of college.

A degree doesn't guarantee you a higher salary, but it should hopefully give you an opportunity to increase your salary at a higher rate and to a higher level.

PucaMama

hmmm wrote: »

I don't understand the calculations - how many hours do nurses work?

22000/52/40 = 10.57 per hour for a 40 hour week.

22 grand for a starting salary straight out of college sounds pretty decent to me.

Work as a nurse for a week so and then see how you feel about the pay.

NinjaTruncs

It was reported earlier in the week that the 6.49 figure is what they get paid during their placement, i.e work experience during their college course, but don't let the facts get in the way of a good bashing thread.

PucaMama

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

It was reported earlier in the week that the 6.49 figure is what they get paid during their placement, i.e work experience during their college course, but don't let the facts get in the way of a good bashing thread.

What year in college is it paid?? Must only be 4th.

Mint Sauce

hmmm wrote: »

I don't understand the calculations - how many hours do nurses work?

22000/52/40 = 10.57 per hour for a 40 hour week.

22 grand for a starting salary straight out of college sounds pretty decent to me.

Exactly. Nurses do deserve to get paid a decent wage for the work they do, they can be totally unapreciated, but those figures dont work out for me either. I work in the private health sector, not as a nurse, earn around the same per year, working full time hours, but certainly earn more per hour than that.

At them 22k a year, at 6.49 per hour, would mean a work rate of over 60 hrs a week, unless them figures are taking into account unsociable hours.

NinjaTruncs

PucaMama wrote: »

What year in college is it paid?? Must only be 4th.

No idea it wasn't reported, but I would imagine 3rd or 4th year.

moxin

PucaMama wrote: »

Work as a nurse for a week so and then see how you feel about the pay.

Why choose a career as a nurse? This recession in the public healthcare sector has been going on since '07\'08 with cutbacks. A student entering college in '08\'09 knew well that there was little hope of a job in 2013\2014 by the time they graduate.

PucaMama

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

No idea it wasn't reported, but I would imagine 3rd or 4th year.

IF that's still going on its more than likely ONLY 4th. And I've heard it's stopped.

UrbanSea

hmmm wrote: »

I don't understand the calculations - how many hours do nurses work?

22000/52/40 = 10.57 per hour for a 40 hour week.

22 grand for a starting salary straight out of college sounds pretty decent to me.

My sister is a nurse and hearing the **** she has to put up with I wouldn't do it for 44, they aren't paid near enough. Nursing is a tough job physically and mentally, it's not as if they're coming straight from college with a book taught generic business degree or something.

UrbanSea

moxin wrote: »

Why choose a career as a nurse? This recession in the public healthcare sector has been going on since '07\'08 with cutbacks. A student entering college in '08\'09 knew well that there was little hope of a job in 2013\2014 by the time they graduate.

There is a difference, there are plenty of jobs, just **** pay.

PucaMama

moxin wrote: »

Why choose a career as a nurse? This recession in the public healthcare sector has been going on since '07\'08 with cutbacks. A student entering college in '08\'09 knew well that there was little hope of a job in 2013\2014 by the time they graduate.

Because I don't want a job I don't like?? Personal choice and all that.

hmmm

PucaMama wrote: »

Because I don't want a job I don't like??

Lots of people work hard at a job they don't like and don't get anything like 22 grand a year in their first year. (I'm not "nurse bashing" but some people don't seem to live in the real world.)

wolfpawnat

PucaMama wrote: »

IF that's still going on its more than likely ONLY 4th. And I've heard it's stopped.

It was stopped fully about 2 years ago if I recall. It is all for free now. A lot of the girls I was nursing with were angry about it at the time as they were brought in instead of qualified nurses to work shifts, so saving the HSE money, and them as slave labour.

UrbanSea

hmmm wrote: »

Lots of people work hard at a job they don't like and don't get anything like 22 grand a year in their first year. (I'm not "nurse bashing" but some people don't seem to live in the real world.)

How many of them went to college for four years specifically to join that profession ? We aren't talking about unskilled workers.

And a minimum wage salary is 17 1/2, you are talking as if they are getting an astronimcally larger amount.

moxin

PucaMama wrote: »

Because I don't want a job I don't like?? Personal choice and all that.

One doesn't always get what they want. What you're saying is like we should still churn out thousands of architects, surveyors, electricians, plumbers even though there is no demand for them post crash. Choose a career thats in constant demand and one should be fine.

Stavros Murphy

moxin wrote: »

Why choose a career as a nurse? This recession in the public healthcare sector has been going on since '07\'08 with cutbacks. A student entering college in '08\'09 knew well that there was little hope of a job in 2013\2014 by the time they graduate.

You're never getting ill? Good for you! If you do, you'll suddenly start valuing Nurses. They might even suddenly seem more important than Jedward, as it happens.

steddyeddy

People keep saying it's in line with most graduate pay. Well newsflash guys nurses work harder than most graduates.

UrbanSea

moxin wrote: »

One doesn't always get what they want. What you're saying is like we should still churn out thousands of architects, surveyors, electricians, plumbers even though there is no demand for them post crash. Choose a career thats in constant demand and one should be fine.

You seem to have neglected a fundemental point, do you think our hospitals have too many nurses or something?

PucaMama

hmmm wrote: »

Lots of people work hard at a job they don't like and don't get anything like 22 grand a year in their first year. (I'm not "nurse bashing" but some people don't seem to live in the real world.)

Well then those people should change their job. Go to college at night if they have to or want to. If they are so unhappy make a change.

hmmm

PucaMama wrote: »

Well then those people should change their job. Go to college at night if they have to or want to. If they are so unhappy make a change.

You really don't live in the real world do you? There's half a million people unemployed, most of who who would happily work for minimum wage, and you're upset at getting paid 22 grand a year in your first real job. Just because you have a degree does not make you special.

PucaMama

moxin wrote: »

One doesn't always get what they want. What you're saying is like we should still churn out thousands of architects, surveyors, electricians, plumbers even though there is no demand for them post crash. Choose a career thats in constant demand and one should be fine.

I don't get it do you go think there's not enough work for nurses? Have u ever been in hospital at all.