Huge decline in nurses employed within North West region

Latest figures from the HSE reveal that there are 330 fewer nurses employed across the community care setting across the Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, and Monaghan region.
Reacting to these figures, Donegal Deputy Pearse Doherty says the huge reduction in the number of nurses working across the community healthcare setting is very concerning and says it is further evidence that little is being done to reverse cuts made to staffing levels while patients and service users continue to suffer.
The figures provided to Sinn Féin in response to a Dáil Question, show that there are 1,663 community nurses working in the region.
Meanwhile, in 2007, 1993 community nurses provided either by the HSE or voluntary agencies were working in non-acute settings while in 2013, the number of community nurses was cut to 1,614, a reduction of almost 20% in six years.
Deputy Doherty has expressed his outrage at the dramatic cut to the number of community nurses in the region, he says it’s little wonder that we have a health service in crisis, yet the evidence from these figures show that little is being done to reverse the cuts made to staffing levels over recent years.