‘Doing the work of two nurses and not getting the pay of one’: Nurses stage midday protest

“I just feel like I can’t work here any more,” says Juliana Daly, a 23-year-old nurse at St Vincent’s University Hospital who is nearing her first year as a fully qualified medical professional. “I can’t work in Ireland any more. It devastates me as well that I’m going to have to leave my family to go over, but I just don’t see how I can even do another year here, to be honest.”The Co Galway native has lived in Dublin for the past five years, but that will soon change. Come January, she will move to Sydney in Australia, following other two nurses around her age who recently emigrated. The three young women all worked on the same ward, but one by one they have left Ireland for Australia shortly after qualifying as nurses.READ MOREDaly feels as though there’s little choice in the matter. “The working conditions in the hospital aren’t acceptable,” she says. “We’re doing the work of, essentially, two nurses – and we’re not even getting enough pay for one”. Juliana Daly (23), from Galway, and Elise Ryan (23), from Kilkenny, who graduated from UCD last year, join other members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation protest outside St Vincent’s hospital on Thursday. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne for The Irish Times Alongside her stands Elise Ryan, also 23 years old and from Co Kilkenny. The pair studied nursing together at University College Dublin.“We weren’t naive,” Ryan says. “We knew we weren’t going to make millions: everybody knows that when you’re going into nursing. You’re doing it because it’s a profession that you feel you want to do – but I still don’t think that’s a reason for us not to be paid enough money.“We love our jobs and we put a lot of effort into caring for our patients – it is an honour to care for our patients, to help through hard times in their lives and the end of their lives.”“But, at the end of the day, when you go home and you get your pay cheque: it’s a lot of tax, it’s not much to cover your rent and bills.” She says you ask yourself: “Why am I pouring myself out for this?“Every ounce of energy I have is going into this job and I’m not getting a lot back. I think that’s really important, that’s why we’re out here today,” she says, as dozens of her nursing colleagues chant: “What do we want? Fair pay. When do we want it? Now.”St Vincent’s University Hospital, in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, is one of nine hospitals nationwide that witnessed lunchtime protests on Thursday to call attention to the impact of cost-of-living pressures on nurses and midwives.Dozens of staff at the hospital, and hundreds across the State, picketed for one hour, with a strike planned next Wednesday by their union, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Association, alongside other public-sector unions. At St Vincent’s they protested through rain, with beeps of support from passing cars, trucks and public buses.Emma Morake (66), who has worked at St Vincent’s hospital since 2007. 'When you’re working under a lot of pressure, it’s unsafe, it’s unhealthy.' Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne for The Irish Times Emma Morake, a 66-year-old originally from South Africa who has worked at the hospital since 2007, is at ease in leading the demonstration’s chants. “We just want to say to the Government: come see us – because the patients see us, their relatives see us. Can the Government at least see us?”“A little bit of compassion” is what she wants to see, “because nursing salaries haven’t really kept up with the cost of living.“When you’re working under a lot of pressure, it’s unsafe, it’s unhealthy ... Nurses are psychologically, mentally and physically exhausted” during work hours. “Even the patients recognise it: they always say: ‘You work so hard.’ So why can’t the Government recognise that?”