A leading children's hospital is encouraging former staff nurses to return and is to recruit staff abroad to cope with a nurse shortage in intensive care and surgery.
Problems created by the shortages are now "coming to a head", the chief executive of Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Dublin, Mr Paul Kavanagh, said yesterday.
A two-year-old Tallaght, Co Dublin, boy has had surgery postponed on three occasions, partly because of a shortage of nurses.
Mr Kavanagh said the hospital was "trying to make arrangements to move other patients over the coming week to ensure that the child has the operation on Thursday".
He said that from the point of view of the family of Dillon Smyth, the cancellations were "quite a dreadful thing to happen".
But he warned that the hospital was having increasing difficulties coping with the shortage of nurses for its intensive care unit and operating theatres.
"We have had a number of cases which we would have regarded as quite urgent for admission to the hospital, where we have had difficulty taking them," he said. This meant children had to be held for longer in the hospitals which were referring them to Our Lady's.
Of the 105 intensive care unit posts, 23 are vacant. Six of the 24 posts for theatre nurses are vacant. One of the problems, he said, is that nurses working in intensive care and in operating theatres are paid the same as nurses on other duties.
The view of the hospital was that the possibility of paying more to nurses in these areas should be considered.
The hospital's director of nursing is currently contacting nurses who used to work in intensive care and surgery at the hospital. They are being offered flexible arrangements to encourage them to return.
The hospital is also considering whether it would be feasible to keep its creche open until 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. to fit in with shift times.
The director of nursing is to travel to Britain to recruit staff and the hospital is also making inquiries elsewhere.