Alex Easton MLA has today called on the Health Minister to deal with nursing Vacancies after an NI Assembly question revealed there are 2214 unfilled nursing vacancies across Northern Ireland.
Speaking today Alex Easton MLA said:
“There is a serious problem with filling nursing vacancies across all our Trusts and not one Health Minister has tackled the issue and addressed it, which has been ongoing as an issue for years. At a time when we need all our nursing vacancies filled the most, it is no wonder our hospitals are overstretched because our nurses are being run into the ground having to cover for all the vacancies on top of Covid and the oncoming winter pressures. Our nurses deserve better, they deserve to have the support they need and it’s about time they got that full support. Nurses should be one of the priority’s for our Health Minister, he needs to authorize the training of more nurses for the long term future, he needs to ensure that all nursing vacancies are filled and that Trusts do not hold back on filling positions to save money, and if it means going abroad to bring those nurses in to fill those nursing positions then the Health Minister needs to act now not later. I know that in a year’s time when I ask the same Assembly question the answers will still be roughly the same, it’s time that our politicians started holding our Trust managers and Health Minister to account, especially if something is not right and it certainly is not right that our wonderful nursing staff are being left without their full complement of colleagues for support.”
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