Irish hospitals hope to recruit nurses from Scotland worried about Brexit
Martin Higgins (32) from Galway for integrated medicine and Deirdre Gill (40) from Roscommon attending the nursing jobs fair in London. Photograph: Ellen O’Riordan
Recruiters from Dublin’s Beaumont and the Coombe maternity jospitals as well as other Irish hospitals were in London on Saturday, hoping to lure nurses working in the UK to work in Ireland, which has been a fertile recruiting ground for Health Boards for the past 100 years.
While Irish citizens will retain their rights after Britain leaves the European Union, Brexit was a push factor. “Brexit was a contributing factor for me looking into going back home,” says 22-year-old Irish student nurse Caoimhe Ludden. “I’m like everyone else in UK who just thinks the whole [BREXIT] thing is a joke.”
She added: “When I moved over I was excited about being somewhere new, but then I realised that Ireland is home.”
Between 2017 and 2018, almost 4,000 EU nurses and midwives left the NHS register, according to figures from the UK’s Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Thomas Jayan, recruitment officer at the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital, attended the event to hoping to entice highly-qualified Irish midwives who trained in the UK to work in Ireland.
“When we speak to Irish students based in the UK, they say they are scared about the impact of Brexit,” says Mr Jayan. Many of them want to come home when they finish their studies because of all the uncertainty over here.”
As well as staff leaving, the NHS has experienced an 87 per cent drop in applications from EU nurses.
Source: Irish Times