About 100 nurses and other healthcare professionals are expected to attend an African Health Summit to be held in Dublin this Saturday.
The event, which is being organised by the Association of Nigerian Nurses in Ireland, is the first of its kind and intended to provide advice and supports on a range of issues affecting the organisation’s membership and other African workers employed in the Irish health service.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly is scheduled to address the event which will take place at the Richmond Education Centre in Dublin. Among the other speakers lined up are the Nigerian ambassador to Ireland, a number of academics and representatives of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the Nurses and Midwifery Board.
One of those involved in running the event, Olayinka Aremu, said that while anyone is welcome to attend the event, the themes involved will be of particularly relevance to the growing number of African nurses and other health professionals from the continent working in Ireland.
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There will be talks and discussion groups on issues such as health – Africans working here are disproportionately prone to developing particular health problems including stroke, diabetes and certain cancers and tend to be reluctant to seek treatment, she says – employment issues and, somewhat inevitably, accommodation.
More than 600 Nigerian nurses were registered in Ireland, according to the latest available figures, with about 100 arriving over the past 12 months, said Ms Aremu, who has been here for six years.
Having initially worked in a nursing home, then two of Dublin’s main public hospitals, she has, she says, encountered many of the challenges those coming from Nigeria to Ireland have to overcome, from visa issues both for herself and then her family and finding somewhere to live.
“It’s [housing] a major thing for our members,” she says. “We have a WhatsApp group and I think it’s the thing that keeps the group going . . . people asking for accommodation.
“We have nurses coming from all over Africa and accommodation is a big problem which affects their ability to do the job.
“We have nurses living in shared rooms, sleeping in bunks, accommodation that is mixed gender . . . It’s a huge issue. Then you look at the distance people end up travelling to the workplace. Of course, it’s not just for nurses, it’s a national crisis. But we believe that for healthcare professionals, there should be some provision from the Government.”
The possibility has been raised previously by Mr Donnelly.
Ms Aremu said that coming to Ireland has been a hugely rewarding experience for her, her husband and two children, the three of whom were able to join her here after a year and a half. They now live in Enfield where, she says, they have all settled well in a welcoming community.
There are, she suggests, many more nurses back in Nigeria who would like to come too but the recent growth in numbers has been halted by a World Health Organisation decision to place Nigeria on a red list, effectively discouraging recruitment from overseas due to shortages with the nation’s own system.
This, she said, ignores the fact that there are “thousands” of unemployed nurses in Nigeria who cannot find work there but now find it harder to leave.
The demand, as in many other places, remains strong here with twice as many nurses recruited from overseas last year as qualified in Ireland. The Department of Health said last week that almost half (49 per cent) of healthcare professionals working in Ireland gained their initial qualification overseas.
A European Journal of Public Health report in 2020 suggested that figure for Ireland was the highest of any country in Europe.
Details of the African Health Summit are on Eventbrite.ie.
