The Dáil’s Covid-19 committee will today hear that over 2,700 nurses have now been infected with the virus.
It represents a third of the 8,300 cases among healthcare workers – which itself is 32% of all cases in the Republic.
The INMO says many nurses who’ve recovered from the virus still can’t return to work, due to post-viral fatigue.
The organisation’s general secretary, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, isn’t surprised nurses have been so badly affected by the disease:
She said “We spend a lot of time with the patients and many of the nurses who were infected had long periods of time working on covid positive wards without frequent breaks, without frequent hydration because they had to wear PPE, you can’t just walk out on the middle of providing care to patients, they were providing care to very sick people”.
