Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said it is a “scandal” if first year nursing students have been caring for Covid positive patients during the second wave of the pandemic.
It comes after Mr Martin faced a fiery exchange in the Dáil during Leaders’ Questions with Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald and People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett.
They both raised the matter of the government’s decision to not reinstate paying student nurses during the pandemic.
Mr Boyd Barret read a testimony from Conor, a first year nursing student in which he claims he had to wash, feed and lift and care for a Covid-19 patient.
Mr Martin said: “I don’t think [that’s OK].
“I think that’s a scandal, that is wrong and should be investigated.
“You’re saying they should be paid and I’m saying they should never have been asked to do it in the first instance and I want that investigated and I want you to give me that case because I want to get to the bottom of this.
“If that happened it is a scandal and should not have happened.”
Mr Martin said no student nurse in their first or second year of training should be treating a Covid-19 patient now calling it “abuse” and “wrong.”
And that they shouldn’t be rostered to cover night duty.
He said there will be an investigation if first year students are treating Covid-19 patients but directors of nursing in hospitals are disputing this is the case.
Mr Martin said: “No first year student should be treating a Covid patient, no second year student should either.
“Nor should they be rostered at night duty, that is an exploitation and abuse of the student.
“In my view that is wrong, that is abuse.
“No hospital and no director of nursing should be enabling that to be the case and particularly in the second wave of Covid because it didn’t have the same impact as the first wave on hospitalisations and ICU.”
Mr Martin said testimonies by student nurses by TDs should be forwarded to him and to the HSE in the form of complaints so an investigation can take place.
He hit back at both TDs who called him out over the reversal of the FEMPI cuts and Cabinet’s approval of the 2% pay rise to the judiciary.
Mr Martin accused the Sinn Fein leader of twisting and “distorting the truth.”
He said Ms McDonald and Mr Boyd Barrett had previously campaigned for the reversal of FEMPI.
