peter
“I was working as a Cardiac Specialist nurse in London for the past four years and even though I loved my job, I missed my family and my friends so I decided to move back. Unfortunately, moving back was one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made from a career perspective. Having worked abroad I got to experience the differences first hand. Not only in terms of wages but also in workload, conditions and in general the respect given to nurses was far better over there. I knew it would be harder but I thought that the fact that I am home would balance it out, but now I know I would have been better off staying there and spending that extra money on plane tickets to come home more regularly. Even though Irish nurses are so well recognised all over the world, our government doesn’t seem to appreciate us and by that, forces us to leave… For me, starting in Dublin constantly raised red flags, walking through crowded wards every time I had to transfer patients and seeing elderly people on trollies for days on end breaks my heart. The hospitals are understaffed and the nurses are overloaded. The red flags are obvious and it’s not just me, the people are crying out for change.”