Why not pay the student nurses?!

weisses

Gervais08 wrote: »

No they’re not - they can leave to take up very lucrative positions wherever they want.

They pay 10-12k for Ireland to train them and can be off earning six figures tax free in the Middle East before the ink has dried on the certificate.

Sounds good doesn't it. Its the reward for 4 years of hard work.

Sardonicat

thomasdylan wrote: »

Medical students aren't any practical help usually and shouldn't be paid. They're really just there for learning.

Exactly. Its why we have intern Drs who are new graduates. This is when they start working, not while they are pursuing their degree.

Gervais08

weisses wrote: »

Once you start your internship in year 4 you should be paid close to what a nurse is getting..... mainly because you actually have your own patients assigned to you.

Completely agree.

Solutionking

weisses wrote: »

I have possible placement 3 hours away from where I live ....And placements are not known until 4 weeks before actually going there

How many times does this actually happen to any student nurse?

When you signed up didn't they make you fully aware you don't get paid and placements could have to be far away but they would hope to place you as close as possible?

Solutionking

What would nurses say if they got paid during training but they have to work in Ireland and HSE for at least 15 years after they are fully trained? to pay back for the investment?

Gervais08

Sardonicat wrote: »

It's not books for the most part. Its exactly the same amount of practical hours they always had before the Bsc with a fulltime degree course on top. About double the workload of any other degree course.

Fair comment tbf. I never saw the logic in changing to be a degree course when it worked well.

I don’t know about here but I know in the UK it was a bad side effect of New Labour’s obsession with getting half the population into university - even creating nonsense courses.

weisses

Solutionking wrote: »

How many times does this actually happen to any student nurse?

Roughly around 12 times during the first 3 years. You usually are on 2 placements per semester, sometimes these placements are in the same Hospital though

Solutionking wrote: »

When you signed up didn't they make you fully aware you don't get paid and placements could have to be far away but they would hope to place you as close as possible?

Yes I was aware of not getting paid, The problem I have with this whole thing is that the allowances while on placement are not covering the cost so being on placement is potentially costing me money, which I think should be addressed. And they don't take into account where you live or any other personal circumstances when allocating placements.

Solutionking

weisses wrote: »

Roughly around 12 times during the first 3 years. You usually are on 2 placements per semester, sometimes these placements are in the same Hospital though

I mean that a nurse gets placed a far distance from home/college.

weisses wrote: »

Yes I was aware of not getting paid, The problem I have with this whole thing is that the allowances while on placement are not covering the cost so being on placement is potentially costing me money, which I think should be addressed. And they don't take into account where you live or any other personal circumstances when allocating placements.

I hate to tell you but some people are spending thousands to get an educations.

I know lots of people who have gone trained, done more courses etc in the hSE. They always take into consideration location.

Other personal circumstances are what? I dont like XYZ type stuff? hate to tell you no company does.

ExMachina1000

thomasdylan wrote: »

Medical students aren't any practical help usually and shouldn't be paid. They're really just there for learning.

I was in the acute diagnostic ward in Tullamore last year. The consultant was asking me questions while examining me. There were 3 or 4 students also there watching him work and listening to his process of diagnosis. He would also ask them the odd question but focused on me.

I assume they weren't getting paid because they didn't do anything! Stood watching as they are training. It's just part of their education. It's not a job

weisses

Solutionking wrote: »

I mean that a nurse gets placed a far distance from home/college.

Very difficult to asses Students in college here are from all over Ireland ... My own situation is a 140 km roundtrip daily at least with the furthest possible placement 150 km away

Solutionking wrote: »

I hate to tell you but some people are spending thousands to get an educations.

Yes I am aware I spend thousands and that is before going on placement

Solutionking wrote: »

Plus I dont think you are telling the truth. I know lots of people who have gone trained, done more courses etc in the hSE. They always take into consideration location.

Why would I tell lies?? We were told there are hundreds of places to be allocated each and every time and they could not take into account peoples preferences. Which to me makes perfect sense

Solutionking wrote: »

Other personal circumstances are what? I dont like XYZ, hate to tell you no company does.

Uhh no .. Other circumstances could be a mature nursing student with 3 kids looking for a place closer to home for instance

LuasSimon

We can’t afford to pay the student nurses because there are so many bosses and long standing staff in the HSE earning 80/90/100k plus salaries with the cost of their pensions crippling the state .

Galwayguy35

Wanderer78 wrote: »

just give people the money, its much faster and circulates quicker, the economy needs money fast, reducing taxes doesnt increase the money supply, borrowing does, its how we create more money, reducing taxes just increases the velocity of the money supply, even though this is also needed....

Typical far left statement.

Shake the mythical money tree and keep the taxes high.

thomasdylan

khalessi wrote: »

Traditionally student nurses were paid when they trained in hospitals as they were working 40 hour weeks and doing night duty. This changed when the training became university based. They should be paid for their year on the wards.

Medicine has been hospital based for years but the last year or first year on the was as an intern has always been paid.

It should be the same for student nurses.

They should also have been paid for working on the wards during the pandemic, as they were doing 30 hour weeks.

Internship isn't the last year of the medical degree. You can leave Ireland after the 5 or 6 year medical degree and start medical training in the US or Canada without having done an intern year. Interns can prescribe and can do pretty much everything an SHO can so I'm not sure if they're quite the same as a student nurse.

weisses

ExMachina1000 wrote: »

I was in the acute diagnostic ward in Tullamore last year. The consultant was asking me questions while examining me. There were 3 or 4 students also there watching him work and listening to his process of diagnosis. He would also ask them the odd question but focused on me.

I assume they weren't getting paid because they didn't do anything! Stood watching as they are training. It's just part of their education. It's not a job

The fact you didn't see any nursing students there looking at you has probably to do with the fact they were busy working

Exceptional times. I think they should be paid. It's not like 17-year-olds choosing a degree could ever imagine they'd be thrown into the front line of a global pandemic.

ma003

thomasdylan wrote: »

Internship isn't the last year of the medical degree. You can leave Ireland after the 5 or 6 year medical degree and start medical training in the US or Canada without having done an intern year. Interns can prescribe and can do pretty much everything an SHO can so I'm not sure if they're quite the same as a student nurse.

Yeh this is true! You finish your medical degree once you're finished college. You are a doctor during your intern year and an employee of the hse so its not the same thing as a student nurse still in college.

Also as already mentioned placements as a medical student are learning experiences where as student nurses are actually working from year so should be paid.

thomasdylan

Sardonicat wrote: »

It's not books for the most part. Its exactly the same amount of practical hours they always had before the Bsc with a fulltime degree course on top. About double the workload of any other degree course.

I don't know about the double the workload comment. There's lots of degrees with less placements but higher academic demands.

ExMachina1000

weisses wrote: »

The fact you didn't see any nursing students there looking at you has probably to do with the fact they were busy working

*learning

weisses

ExMachina1000 wrote: »

*learning

I think Its 10-20% actual learning on a typical day if you are lucky. the rest of your time you are working hard.

ExMachina1000

weisses wrote: »

I think Its 10-20% actual learning on a typical day if you are lucky. the rest of your time you are working hard.

Working as a what? Not as a nurse because they are still training so aren't qualified.

During the pandemic when these nursing students couldn't work part time to earn a wage the government should have paid them a base rate similar to the pandemic unemployment payment. That would have been fair.

Were they not entitled to the pandemic unemployment payment because they couldn't take up part time work or had to leave their jobs?

AutoTuning

I appreciate it’s training, but it’s increasingly considered unacceptable to offer unpaid internships and very much so to require them for access to a career.

Obviously, they’re not qualified nurses and may be relatively early in their academic courses when they hit the wards, but it’s not really reasonable to not treat it as a paid internship.

I find the medical and legal professions here still inhabit the 19th century with notions of “serving your time”.

The media sector also has a history of a terrible abuse of internships and getting people to work for buttons, so can be the worst judge of what’s normal in other industries.

Obviously they don’t need to be taken on as a staff nurse, with pension rights and all sorts of things, but they could be classed as “nurse intern” and given a basic payment for doing that.

It’s particularly galling at the moment when they’ve been put into situations, dangers and workloads that are totally beyond normal and nobody thought that perhaps it might be appropriate to compensate them for that.

There’s an element of Victorian nonsense to all this in healthcare in Ireland and it seems to be why we lose so many healthcare professionals.

Padre_Pio

ExMachina1000 wrote: »

Working as a what? Not as a nurse because they are still training so aren't qualified.

During the pandemic when these nursing students couldn't work part time to earn a wage the government should have paid them a base rate similar to the pandemic unemployment payment. That would have been fair.

Were they not entitled to the pandemic unemployment payment because they couldn't take up part time work or had to leave their jobs?

AFAIK only the ones who were already working part time and forced to give up their jobs got PUP. Anyone who wasn't working at the time is not eligible. This was only announced recently due to this whole controversy and will be applied retrospectively.

Which in itself it bullsh*t.

They've just created a two tier system within student nurses.
Those who were working in hospitals and got no money.
Those who were working in hospitals and got an unemployment payment, the same as people who were doing nothing.
The farce continues.

CatFromHue

Does anyone have a breakdown of who has and hasn't been paid and what level of student or duration of placement they were?

The headline of the student nurses, as in all of them, weren't paid doesn't seem true at all but it looks like some students weren't paid.

Sardonicat

thomasdylan wrote: »

I don't know about the double the workload comment. There's lots of degrees with less placements but higher academic demands.

What do you know of the academic demands of a BSc in Nursing? Its a full degree course with everything that entails - essays, exams, research projects etc. Often deadlines are set mid-placement where you are far away from resources. Not to mention that the breadth of Nursing means you are in lectures all day long while in college . Ananstomy and physiology, bio-chrmistry, pharmacology, law, economics, sociology, health related social policy, nursing theory, nursing practice.....I haven't covered them all. Most students have time during the day to get some work done outside of lectures, student nurses don't. Your attitude demonstrates exactly why Nursing as a profession chose to switch to degree programmes for qualifications. Despite decades of excellent scholarship and research, Nursing is still not taken seriously as a profession.Even now, you have demonstrated that their degree is somehow regarded lesser than that of other Health professions.

Gervais08

Sardonicat wrote: »

What do you know of the academic demands of a BSc in Nursing? Its a full degree course with everything that entails - essays, exams, research projects etc. Often deadlines are set mid-placement where you are far away from resources. Not to mention that the breadth of Nursing means you are in lectures all day long while in college . Ananstomy and physiology, bio-chrmistry, pharmacology, law, economics, sociology, health related social policy, nursing theory, nursing practice.....I haven't covered them all. Most students have time during the day to get some work done outside of lectures, student nurses don't. Your attitude demonstrates exactly why Nursing as a profession chose to switch to degree programmes for qualifications. Despite decades of excellent scholarship and research, Nursing is still not taken seriously as a profession.Even now, you have demonstrated that their degree is somehow regarded lesser than that of other Health professions.

Every word true - and precisely why nursing should never have overloaded it’s new intake with a degree when apprenticeship style on the job training was so much better.

weisses

ExMachina1000 wrote: »

Working as a what? Not as a nurse because they are still training so aren't qualified.

basically everything a HCA does added with work within the nursing student scope of competencies.... Ranging from cleaning a bed pan to taking an ECG.

ma003

CatFromHue wrote: »

Does anyone have a breakdown of who has and hasn't been paid and what level of student or duration of placement they were?

The headline of the student nurses, as in all of them, weren't paid doesn't seem true at all but it looks like some students weren't paid.

I know my sister was in her final year 9 month placement during the start of the pandemic which is paid minimum wage in normal circumstances and they got paid a healthcare assistant wage till they were done, I think that has been scaled back to min wage again. I'm not sure about years 1-3.

I know a lot of nursing students work as locom healthcare assistants during their degree on their days off but this has become harder as you can only work in one hospital or care home now to prevent cross contamination and if you are doing placements you can't do locom work somewhere else.

upandcumming

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Typical far left statement.

Shake the mythical money tree and keep the taxes high.

I was going to reply to a similar post from this poster, but they have ten or so posts saying the same thing.
We'll be told that the people on the dole are tax payers because they pay VAT.

weisses

CatFromHue wrote: »

Does anyone have a breakdown of who has and hasn't been paid and what level of student or duration of placement they were?

The headline of the student nurses, as in all of them, weren't paid doesn't seem true at all but it looks like some students weren't paid.

Students in year 1 to 3 are not supposed to be paid while on placement in year 4 when you go on a 36 weeks internship you get paid something .. I wouldn't call it a wage though

Sardonicat

Gervais08 wrote: »

Every word true - and precisely why nursing should never have overloaded it’s new intake with a degree when apprenticeship style on the job training was so much better.

I actually don't disagree with it being a Degree programme but I think it could be designed a lot better. Honestly, I think both Nursingand Medicine should be Post Grad courses of shorter duration. Get the med students on placement in a similar vein to Nursing Students. Its home both are fine in the States, for example.