Nurse aren't worth the minimum wage?

Phoebas

KyussBishop wrote: »

You deliberately and dishonestly misrepresented my post, by selectively quoting it; you quoted me as saying nurses are "the hardest working people in the entire country", when I said nurses are "some of the hardest working people in the entire country" - in order to try and slur my post as being hyperbolic.

You knew this was dishonest, and you did it anyway to try and pour doubt on my post - it's an extremely obvious example of misrepresentation, and ironically hyperbolic exaggeration of what I had said.

Your earlier post was hyperbolic in my opinion and this post is a bit pedantic, in my opinion.
You may not agree and that's fine, but I'm not being dishonest, knowingly or otherwise (but its interesting that your powers extend to you knowing what I think :eek:).

Anyway, you should drop the personal stuff now and stick to the topic.

dxhound2005

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

Doctors pay has been reduced, and, guess what the HSE can't get enough doctors to work here, despite them trawling the world for them. That covers consultants and NCHDs and the quality of the service is deteriorating. So if that's how you would like the situation on the nursing side to go(which it seems to be), reducing wages further, and more importantly, keeping the HSE the shambles that it is, keep on with the suggestions






The point is that these nurses have very low paid jobs in their specialist field. It's not comparable to say someone with a PHD in law or whatever is on minimum wage in McDs.




If the HSE wasn't the dysfunctional money pit that it is, there might be some hope of decent conditions and wages for frontline staff. I don't think that anyone who hasn't been there can truly appreciate how broken it is. It's no wonder we are losing some of our best to other countries. Wages are only a small part of it, conditions, I think are the more long term problem.

I referred to the conditions a while back. You being in the field of medicine will no doubt know about the crisis in A&E in the NHS and horror stories like Stafford. And like I said some people blithley say that nurses are highly valued and well paid all over the world and have far better condtions than here. But I think they often make these statements without know the actual position. I would venture to say that our service is attractive to a lot of people from abroad who would have worse conditions in their own countries.

Janedoe10

steddyeddy wrote: »

Nurses are responsible for people's lives guys that's why I put them a bit higher on the list in terms of societal value.

Deary . Will u get over yourself! . U hope that one is in her nursing job for the right reasons . And not lording it over the minions that show up during YOUR shift with an illness . All I read from this is . Is a sense of entitlement . God forbid some one working and it's a bad day for them . Be glad u have a job at all , u think u should have more money ? direct frustration towards your unions , don't u pay a subscription for that ?

ProfessorPlum

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I referred to the conditions a while back. You being in the field of medicine will no doubt know about the crisis in A&E in the NHS and horror stories like Stafford. And like I said some people blithley say that nurses are highly valued and well paid all over the world and have far better condtions than here. But I think they often make these statements without know the actual position. I would venture to say that our service is attractive to a lot of people from abroad who would have worse conditions in their own countries.

I know plenty of people who've worked/work in the NHS and in our system and everyone of them, without exception feels that conditions, and the functionality of the system is streets ahead of here. Absolutely, there are areas of difficulty there too, and always room for improvement, but overall, it's a much nicer place to work.
Our service is attractive to some from abroad - predominately from developing countries/countries with huge amounts of abject poverty. There are very few medics and nurses working here from 'the rich west'
Again, just to make my point, if the system worked properly, and the moral in the HSE wasn't at a chronic low, I think it would retain a lot of talent on current or not far off current salaries. But expecting people to work in the current HSE with poor to average (at a stretch) salaries is just asking a bit too much.

Stavros Murphy

Nidge_Weasel wrote: »

If entertaining, writing software or trading is so easy, why dont you do it.

I never mentioned easy, I didn't even offer a judgement one way or the other. I just said that some endeavours are valued more highly than others. That wasn't a dig at people who operate in a "valued" field, it was just a comment on the way Society perceives value. Personally, I believe people who do difficult, dirty work are often under-valued, often grossly. That's the extent of my argument. I work in an area where I am often grossly over-valued, if compared to say, for example, a Nurse. Recognising something does not imply criticism, it's just "fcuked up" that those who are often the most crucial members of society are often the worst remunerated.

KyussBishop

Phoebas wrote: »

Your earlier post was hyperbolic in my opinion and this post is a bit pedantic, in my opinion.
You may not agree and that's fine, but I'm not being dishonest, knowingly or otherwise (but its interesting that your powers extend to you knowing what I think :eek:).

Anyway, you should drop the personal stuff now and stick to the topic.

Except labelling something 'hyperbolic' isn't simply a matter of opinion, you need to show that I was exaggerating in my post - and to do this you deliberately misquoted me - the misrepresentation in how you quoted me is pretty much impossible to miss.

When you deliberately misrepesent someone, criticizing you for doing that isn't 'getting personal', that's just an overly touchy reaction to someone dismantling your argument - I don't go on about people 'getting personal' when they disagree with me (or even when they smear my posts) - I pick apart their arguments.

You can tell easily when someone is looking to smear and put forward rhetoric in a thread, when they present all of their own views and criticisms as accurate and logically valid, and then start to take offence at every opportunity, when their arguments are picked apart and criticized - mainly because their arguments don't stand up to logical scrutiny, and they want to distract/deflect-away from that.

Phoebas

KyussBishop wrote: »

When you deliberately misrepesent someone [...]

For the third time, I didn't deliberately misrepresent you.

Now will you stop derailing the thread and get back on topic.

Mint Aero

systemicrisk wrote: »

It is a decent wage for a commerce graduate who comes out of a 3 year degree programme and starts a graduate programme with a large company. After a few years experience, this commerce graduates wages would be expected to increase significantly.

A nurse comes out of a 4 year intensive college degree that has a large apprenticeship element to it. The newly graduated nurse is highly experienced in their job and expected to be able to competently carry out all functions from day one. This alongside the level of responsibility for human life, the increased risk from exposure to diseases and the irregular hours with night shifts being a part of the job are just a few reasons why nurses should command a higher starting salary than many new graduates.

Another issue I have with the arguments put forward here is that regarding how we are in a recession and hundreds of thousands would love to do the job for much less. Wages are depressed in the private sector at the minute, fair enough. This is because demand for certain qualifications has dwindled due to reduced global demand for products and services. If we look at it from a purely economic perspective the demand for nurses is constant as there is always a relatively constant level of sick people. So this argument doesnt fly. Now if all the people on the dole went back to college to study nursing and
after the four years were willing to work
for minimum wage then the argument
would be valid. Until then this is
irrelevant.

Spare me

KyussBishop

Phoebas wrote: »

For the third time, I didn't deliberately misrepresent you.

Now will you stop derailing the thread and get back on topic.

You quoted me as saying nurses are "the hardest working people in the entire country" when I said nurses are "some of the hardest working people in the entire country"

You claimed that me saying, nurses are the hardest working people in the country, is hyperbolic - even though I didn't say that - and even when this misrepresentation of what I said has been highlighted 3-4 times now, you're still saying what I said is hyperbolic.

That is a continued deliberate and dishonest misrepresentation, by 1: still claiming I was being hyperbolic, even after the misrepresentation has been shown multiple times and, 2: by implicitly still holding on to the misrepresentation, that your claim of hyperbole is based upon.


This is all completely on-topic, because it shows exactly the kind of dishonest arguments you are using in debate, to try and smear other posters - in a debate, exposing other posters dishonesty (even repeatedly exposing it, especially when they try to distract/deflect from it) is always on-topic; that is a part of debate.

stoneill

RDM_83 again wrote: »

And they receive a shift allowance for that don't they?So you would need to look at the adjusted wage before making the calculation, also factor in saturday hours which may regularly be worked..

I'm just going on what I know from a someone who works as a nurse.
Sure what would they know?

The Aggressive Pepper

KB :rolleyes:

monflat

Only 30 euro extra for a 13 hr saturday shift.

take everything

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Have you been reading the Waterford Whisperer, HSE to employ 3000 junior doctors on Jobbridge?

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2013/10/08/hse-announces-3000-new-jobbridge-placements-for-junior-doctor-positions/

An Irish The Onion.
Very good.
Bookmarked.

dxhound2005

take everything wrote: »

An Irish The Onion.
Very good.
Bookmarked.

There is a thread about it here. In there is a link to something called the Irish Enquirer, could be up your street as well.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057144018

evolving_doors

Please people stop at the Nurses..

Can't we just go back to teacher bashing like the good old days on AH....

Just think of those holidays people...

Now repeat after me..

3 months holidays Joe, 3 months joe...

Now..focus AH rabble..we have work to do,

dxhound2005

Armelodie wrote: »

Please people stop at the Nurses..

Can't we just go back to teacher bashing like the good old days on AH....

Just think of those holidays people...

Now repeat after me..

3 months holidays Joe, 3 months joe...

Now..focus AH rabble..we have work to do,

Can we have a go at journalists and editors who make up stories and produce misleading headlines?

Phoebas

^^ Teaching and Lecturing mod trying to drum up business .

steddyeddy

Most of you must have heard of the massive mismanagement of the HSE. I don't work there but I have friends who work in the labs and as clinicians and they see it as a huge exercise in money mismanagement. The admin in the HSE are a joke and yet for some reason there's very little political moves to reduce the admin in the HSE to a cost effective one. Yet time and time again the front line services are attacked. Yet some of the public say "so what doctors and nurses can just leave".

Instead of maintaining people who work a very hard job (doctors and nurses) leave a job because of pay cuts and unsafe working hours how about dealing with the very real issue of incompetent unsackable admin getting vastly overpaid for a job they love.

dxhound2005

steddyeddy wrote: »

Most of you must have heard of the massive mismanagement of the HSE. I don't work there but I have friends who work in the labs and as clinicians and they see it as a huge exercise in money mismanagement. The admin in the HSE are a joke and yet for some reason there's very little political moves to reduce the admin in the HSE to a cost effective one. Yet time and time again the front line services are attacked. Yet some of the public say "so what doctors and nurses can just leave".

Instead of maintaining people who work a very hard job (doctors and nurses) leave a job because of pay cuts and unsafe working hours how about dealing with the very real issue of incompetent unsackable admin getting vastly overpaid for a job they love.

When you make generalisations like that it's impossible for me to judge if what you are saying is correct. As someone who hasn't heard of massive mismanagement but has seen sensationalist headlines from time to time. As the biggest employer in the country I would expect that some HSE management grades would be on high salaries. But like other branches of the public service that would only be peanuts compared to what is being paid in the private sector.

Here is a 12 page list of HSE grades. Perhaps you could pick out a few of them that are populated by unsackable incompetents.

http://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Benefits_Services/pay/gradecodes.pdf

mikom

mikom wrote: »

To all the fucks on this thread saying nurses are overpaid......... Keep saying your prayers and someday when you slip and crack your head after a few Heino's you may get your wish and a jobbridge intern can sew up the wound with a packing needle and some baling twine.

End of message. You can go back to playing Angry birds in your ould pairs basement now. Shout if you need your nappy changed or you need winding.

You're so cool and edgy.

ProfessorPlum

dxhound2005 wrote: »

When you make generalisations like that it's impossible for me to judge if what you are saying is correct. As someone who hasn't heard of massive mismanagement but has seen sensationalist headlines from time to time. As the biggest employer in the country I would expect that some HSE management grades would be on high salaries. But like other branches of the public service that would only be peanuts compared to what is being paid in the private sector.

Here is a 12 page list of HSE grades. Perhaps you could pick out a few of them that are populated by unsackable incompetents.

http://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Benefits_Services/pay/gradecodes.pdf

To be fair, I think that's a bit simplistic. It's more about organisation of the monster than cutting named catagories of staff. The HSE is badly managed and wasteful of resourses. Comparisons have been done with other health services that put less money into health, and have far better outcomes than we do. Despite the fact that we spend more money on health than many other western countries, we have longer waiting lists, less access to care, less doctors per head of population etc etc. I could google up the stats, but to be honest I couldn't be arsed. It breaks my heart to see the shambles it is, knowing the good people who are and have in the past literally put their blood sweat and tears into their jobs. And it's like knocking your head off a brick wall. Many have left the public system, many have left the country. I am genuinely frightened that if something seriously radical doesn't happen in the way the HSE is organised, our public health system will crumble, and healthcare will only be for those who can afford private.

steddyeddy

dxhound2005 wrote: »

When you make generalisations like that it's impossible for me to judge if what you are saying is correct. As someone who hasn't heard of massive mismanagement but has seen sensationalist headlines from time to time. As the biggest employer in the country I would expect that some HSE management grades would be on high salaries. But like other branches of the public service that would only be peanuts compared to what is being paid in the private sector.

Here is a 12 page list of HSE grades. Perhaps you could pick out a few of them that are populated by unsackable incompetents.

http://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Benefits_Services/pay/gradecodes.pdf

I didn't mention management exclusively I mentioned admin. Many haven't taken a single pay cut throughout the recession.

Regarding that nice list you posted can you tell me how many of these myterious entities are on the list "Administration Unclassified". For that matter the administration numbers and breakdown would be fantastic.

On the wasting money ( I believe the admin have some role in expenditure control) here's a brief article:

IrishExaminer.com - Saturday, February 08, 2014


FRONT | IRELAND | SPORT | WORLD | BUSINESS | Deaths/In Memory

Massive levels of waste in HSE spend

- Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Taxpayers’ money is being spent on massive HSE staff overpayments, lucrative non-tendered contracts for ex-workers, credit cards given to non-HSE employees, and "blank cheque" payouts within the health service.

The situation, which also includes a missing financial paper trail at an elderly facility, is revealed in the latest HSE internal audit files, detailed for the first time today.

Documents obtained by the Irish Examiner show that, despite the system’s significant budget woes, serious questions continue to exist over how public money is used.

Included among 73 separate internal audit files are revelations a major hospital gave hundreds of thousands of euro in non-tendered contracts to ex-staff.


The situation at Letterkenny General Hospital, which breached competition and transparency rules, shows that between 2008 and December 2012, one firm owned by a hospital employee who has since resigned received a €275,357 non-tendered contract to remove facility waste.

A second firm supplying a laundry service received over €150,000 between 2010 and 2012. The internal audit was told a tender process took place and three quotations sought. However, the audit found just one, which "did not constitute an appropriate tender".

The hospital said the contracts highlighted are now undergoing tendering and service level agreements. However, the audit team said despite raising similar concerns in the past, "remedial action still remains to be taken".

A separate audit raised further concerns over overpayments to HSE staff.

The 2013 document, which focussed on the HSE Dublin Mid Leinster area, said as of September 2012, a total of €314,000 was owed by 348 current and former employees who were overpaid in error by €100 to €23,000.

Almost half (48%) of cases did not explain the errors, while the people involved cannot be forced to return the money.

At the Sacred Heart Hospital in Castlebar, Co Mayo, the audit team again raised questions over how money is spent, saying a vital financial paper trail throughout 2010 is missing from the older persons’ facility files.

[media=dcloud]https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1013307-income-and-cash-shh-gal-01-2012-foi-2.html[/media]

After concerns were noted over an "incomplete audit trail" in 2011, the HSE team carried out a second "substantive" check.

It found: "Assurance cannot be given that all income due was identified, collected and recorded, and the incomplete audit trail makes it difficult to identify a loss or to quantify a loss. There is an increased risk of error or fraud." A discrepancy of €14,000 exists between income receipts and HSE account lodgements during 2010, the audit noted.

However, it said as "most of the cash books, receipt books and lodgement books" for the period are "missing", this is not a complete picture.

Further audits examine concerns over financial controls in key services.

The bit in bold doesn't make me think that we have to reduce pay of front line staff without making other cuts.

RDM_83 again

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

Doctors pay has been reduced, and, guess what the HSE can't get enough doctors to work here, despite them trawling the world for them. That covers consultants and NCHDs and the quality of the service is deteriorating. So if that's how you would like the situation on the nursing side to go(which it seems to be), reducing wages further, and more importantly, keeping the HSE the shambles that it is, keep on with the suggestions

My point which seems to have been lost that there has been massive cuts across the health sector and nurses aren't some unique group in suffering.
And AFAIK the reason we have a problem with getting and retaining medics actually isn't really so much to do with our pay rates which compare favorably with other European countries ( we will never be able to compete with US wages but we also don't expect our medical students to take on 200,000 in debt!) but to do with working conditions and hours. Google the HSE spend on Junior Doctor over time before you come back at me that Junior Dr's don't receive a decent wage it was 40,000 ish average overtime back a couple of years ago.

stoneill wrote: »

I'm just going on what I know from a someone who works as a nurse.
Sure what would they know?

They are listed right there in the document that I linked too as being retained for new entrants, it would be pretty unusual for somebody to work 48 hrs per week consistently in nursing and not manage to get at least one allowance/ premium payment on at least some of the hours but I am sure it can happen.

ProfessorPlum

RDM_83 again wrote: »

My point which seems to have been lost that there has been massive cuts across the health sector and nurses aren't some unique group in suffering.
And AFAIK the reason we have a problem with getting and retaining medics actually isn't really so much to do with our pay rates which compare favorably with other European countries ( we will never be able to compete with US wages but we also don't expect our medical students to take on 200,000 in debt!) but to do with working conditions and hours. Google the HSE spend on Junior Doctor over time before you come back at me that Junior Dr's don't receive a decent wage it was 40,000 ish average overtime back a couple of years ago.

No,nurses are not unique. The point I'm trying to make, and it goes for any highly mobile profession, is that there is a limit to the amount of salary reductions that can be made to the point that the job just won't be attractive enough to entice people to stay. When the system you want them to stay in is as broken as ours is, that limit gets higher.

On the doctor front, true, most graduates wont have debts even approaching those that many training in the US will manage to accrue, but there are increasing numbers who are going down the graduate medicine route, where the fees are very high, and graduates haven't a snowballs chance in hell of paying them off if they stay in Ireland.
Junior (may of whom are anything but junior - they will most likely being the one nailing your leg back together when you get run over by a bus) doctors have no interest in doing the kind of overtime that the HSE manages to spend
obscene amounts of money on, but the HSE know that its cheaper to exploit doctors like that, and most are working many, many hours that are not paid for at all. Junior doctors have no gripe about their wage, their issues are illegal working hours and poor levels of training. (See 24 hours no more campaign). Like I said before 'Wages are only a small part of it, conditions, I think are the more long term problem.'

Consultants applying for jobs in this country however are soon to become a thing of the past if the HSE don't do something radical. In fairness, Minister Reilly seems to realise that he has shot himself in the foot in this regard. It used to be the case that almost any consultant job in the country would get loads of applications from really qualified individuals, bring skills and knowledge to this country that just can't be learned here, but the HSE is having serious difficulties filling many posts, even in what would have been considered prestige hospitals, and in many cases have not gotten even one application for posts. Application they have gotten have been from far less qualified people that they used to be seeing. So the consultant issue is very much to do with pay, compounded with, as for the nurses, having to work in a ****e system.

K-9

steddyeddy wrote: »

I didn't mention management exclusively I mentioned admin. Many haven't taken a single pay cut throughout the recession.

All the public service had pay cuts:
http://www.moneyguideireland.com/budget-2010-and-public-sector-pay-cuts.html

Yep, there's load of waste and I'd prefer to see those on big wages take more cuts to reduce cuts to services, but lets deal with facts and not hyperbole.

systemicrisk

sum41dude wrote: »

If a newly graduated nurse is highly experienced, what is a nurse with 20 years service - super mega ultra highly experienced? You shouldn't come out with nonsense like that, it undermines the rest of your post.

Ya your right I was still in bed this morning when wrote that. I just wanted to get across that from graduation nurses are expected to be completely competent jobs unlike many starting on similar wages right after graduation. Alongside the other points I made I believe this would command a higher starting salary.

People keep saying that they know the salary and if they dont like it they shouldnt have chose the job but this again is not a valid argument in this job. In the health sector there is no competitive labour market that sets wages by a process that matches the wage the nurse is willing to accept with the wage the employer is willing to pay. The state as the main healthcare provider decides on the wage level. Anyway thos is just my objective opi io as I have no family members or friends who are nurses so I don't have very strong feelings about it.