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Life

15th Jan 2019

An Irish nurse has gone viral for sharing a picture of her payslip on Twitter

Rebecca O'Keeffe

Irish Nurse

Wow.

So, there’s been a lot of talk about nurses in our country in the last few days and weeks.

On January 30th, Irish nurses will take industrial action.

Over 37,000 will go on strike for increased pay and better working conditions, in the hope of tackling job retention and staff shortage issues.

And we stand with them.

And now, an Irish nurse has gone viral online, for sharing a picture of her payslip on Twitter.

Joanna Hickey posted a snap of her payslip for two weeks of work, amounting to €1,120.80.

When you consider how hard these people work, a figure like that is unacceptable.

irish nurse

“A friendly reminder of what a… nurse’s near top of the scale wages looks like for 2 weeks,” she wrote.

“And if I work weekends and nights away from my child and partner I might make an extra €100.”

She went on to explain all the work she does:

“My role includes ability to mind complex traumatic brain injuries/ severe sepsis and unstable hemodynamic patients/continuous dialysis/know how set up and use multiple ventilators and high flow oxygen delivery systems/assess ABG’s and change ventilation settings inc. ARDS patients,” she said.

“Respiratory chest physio outside of normal hours/weekend and night time pharmacy access as no pharmacist during these hours/ward clerk/help families and deal with social services/be a clinical nutritionist and start appropriate feeding outside normal hours as no CN at weekends.”

irish nurse

“Recognise the deteriorating patient and act rapid and appropriately/inter-hospital transfer and competently use mobile ICU equipment/intra- hospital transfer & accompany patients from different ICU’s nationwide/ educate & train new staff/ teach undergraduate nurses/liase with MDT.”

“Continuous education, personal development and be up to date with latest research regarding patient management/competent with ECG reading/competent multiple transfusion usage/ability to prone or log roll patient using correct manual handling…

“And the rest… I am tired.”

We’re tired just reading this, so we can’t imagine how exhausted she must be.