'It's like they're bringing us here to torture us' Indian nurses in the 'migrant ward' in Ireland suffered severe professional abuse, including the manager's yelling.
Indian nurses have arrived in Ireland, desperate for action. The incident took place in a ward at Galway University Hospital in Ireland, where nurses call it the "Galway Migrant Ward".
Most hospital managements have been quick to react when they are offered huge offers from India to help them deal with staff shortages. This is the latest in a series of complaints by Indian nurses at University Hospital Galway, alleging that they were harassed, humiliated and not given adequate training. "It's like they're bringing us here to torture us," they told the Irish Independent newspaper in Ireland. The hospital's 'dumping ground' without adequate support and training for Indian nurses has affected the treatment of patients. The management's response has made the situation worse.
Those who were suddenly placed after the so-called adaptation migration process, including those who were assigned to new jobs, were left to fend for themselves, with senior nurses reluctant to work in a place where they felt neglected and apprehensive about their new approach to the Irish medical system. In addition, there were thirteen-hour shifts: there would be around 30 patients at any given time. On the night shift, two nurses would look after 15 patients each. Almost everyone was working a two-person job, and they assumed we would. Never say no to anything. That was how it was. Their jobs also included checking patients’ vital signs. Giving them medicine, helping them to eat, feeding them. Transferring them to the commode (toilet), washing them and changing their pads. Almost all of them were patients who needed more care, people with disabilities, the elderly, people with dementia who needed a lot of attention.
The new arrivals lament that the ward has become ‘the place where they leave any migrant nurse’. They claim that they were taken to a ward that has become a ‘dumping ground’ for patients, and at times all the nurses, both migrant and local senior nurses, have refused to work there. The nurses, who have only been in Ireland for two or three months, are training young nurses who are studying in Ireland. The experience from India and the nursing home, they say, is a world apart from a hospital ward.
As is common practice in Ireland, hospitals go through an incoming staff or ‘buddy’ system to support them in the initial stages. Any nurse new to the system has to go through an initial orientation, beyond which there is a trainee process, also known as preceptorship, i.e. professional development programmes. They allege that due to lack of proper support, there were errors in treatment. Some spent a year trying to find answers to them.
The lack of anyone to accompany those who were initially reluctant to complain due to slavery led to further management harassment. Those who were at the forefront of complaining to the nurses' union INMO got a hard time. Their complaints were leaked and given to the management. In their complaint, a simulation drill called cardiac response was introduced to measure the efficiency of the Indian nurses who were at the forefront, and the management was making fun of the new arrivals. The complaint is that on the day the Indian nurse who was at the forefront of the complaint was there, Abhishek (not his real name) put him in charge and conducted this simulation drill, and the management laughed at the enthusiasm of the new nurses who had not been adequately trained by the hospital. In addition, an Indian nurse who went ahead with the complaint was insulted in the ward in front of the patient and her family, saying that a food shop worker in Ireland, Supermac, was better than her, and manager shouted that would lose her PIN number.
Some of them are on stress leave due to concerns, and the doctor asked the nurse who went to the gp (doctor) to take stress leave to avoid work if possible. They also complain that the sick leave given by the doctor for 2 weeks was reduced to 2 days in the hospital. Following this, the complainants say that letters are not given to those who have completed adaptation and papers are delayed for those who need to get a PIN number. In addition, there is an allegation that many of the complainants have different voices, which has made the complaints less sharper. Some are considering returning home. Now the complainants are moving forward with more steps.
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