‘It's so difficult. You have no privacy, no proper rest’ - nurses on being forced to couch surf due to the housing crisis

Jibin Mattathil Soman, a staff nurse at Cork University Hospital, told how nurses, many of whom arrive from abroad, often struggle for months to find accommodation.

He was speaking as delegates at the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) conference in Croke Park backed a motion calling for the union to lobby the Government for better and “more appropriate housing plans “ for frontline essential healthcare workers.

When Mr Soman arrived here from India, he lived in shared accommodation, but after getting married he found it difficult to find somewhere for his family. Eventually, a friend offered a room in his apartment.

“I was searching for three or four months before I found a house for our family,” he said. “So it was six years back, but if you look at this time, even though people try for six months, seven months, you can’t even say that they will get a house. It’s very hard. People are in a very bad situation.

“I can see many new nurses coming to Cork University Hospital trying very hard and then they are nearly crying for a house just to bring their kids, their family, to Ireland.”

Mr Soman, who has been living in Ireland since 2017, said rent in big cities in India is about half what it is in Ireland.

He said when he arrived here, a two- or three-bedroom house with decent facilities cost around €1,400 or €1,500 a month.

“If you look at this time, in 2023 or 2024, you can’t even imagine that. If you’re looking for a one-bedroom house just with a kitchen, with a bedroom, you have to pay €1,600 for an apartment. It’s very common now. You cannot even find a house less than €1,500 anywhere in Cork at the moment,” he said.

Mr Soman said a good house with three bedrooms that might suit a family with two or three children costs at last €2,000 a month.

“It is very hard for a staff nurse working regular shifts to manage that amount of payment,” he added.

Some agents are charging €60 to €80 per viewing for rented accommodation.

“If nurses have to go for four or five house viewings, they are paying €360 or €400 for nothing,” Mr Soman said.

He claimed some of these agents take commissions if they find suitable homes.

“Everyone has at least one person sharing in their houses because that’s the only way they can afford housing for renting,” he added.

Reema Antony, a clinical nurse manager, said she recently heard of a nurse working night shifts at Mercy Hospital who is sleeping on a sofa in a living room.

“It’s so difficult. You have no privacy, no proper rest,” she said.

Experienced nurses, Irish and international, are moving to places like Mallow because they can find accommodation more easily than they can near big hospitals, which affects staffing levels.

One nurse moved back to Kerry to live in her parents’ home because she could not afford rent, Ms Antony said.

Delegates at the INMO conference backed a motion calling for signs to be displayed in clinics and hospitals with an agreed number of nurses and midwives to meet safe ratios with patients.

The motion called for a “revised approach” to safe nurse and midwife staffing levels, with enforcement underpinned by legislation.

During a debate on staffing levels, Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, said the “world of nursing is pissed off”.

However, the Tánaiste rejected concerns expressed over patient safety arising from a recruitment embargo in health.

Micheál Martin was told the INMO published the results of a members’ survey that found 70pc were concerned patient safety was at risk because of staffing shortfalls.

Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty said 63pc had considered leaving their jobs in the last month and one in five had presented to their own doctors with stress.

He told Mr Martin that many young clinicians were moving abroad as a result “and we need them here”. Health staff were sitting interviews and then being told there was no job “because of the recruitment embargo”.

Mr Doherty said the Government’s embargo was “making matters go from bad to worse” and preventing people abroad from moving home.

But Mr Martin said of the claimed worse outcomes: “I don’t accept that all. We need to focus on deployment and on outcomes.”

He said there were 89,614 more health staff in Ireland than there were in Dec­ember 2019.

This country has the second-highest number of working nurses per hundred thousand of the population in Europe, second only to Finland, he added.