Nurses say cost of living has forced them to cut back on groceries and family trips in the car

WHILE THE GOVERNMENT’S response to the global energy crisis has dominated national headlines for the last two weeks, anonymous messages from struggling frontline workers have been widely shared online.

One letter which was publicly shared by the ‘Support for Nurses, Midwives and Frontline Staff in Ireland’ community page, has been liked over ten thousand times and shared by over two and a half thousand people.

In the letter, a nurse details how they are “barely surviving” with the cost of living, as they are commuting from the Midlands to Dublin for work every day because rents in the city were not affordable.

“Our main source of heating is oil. That ran out two weeks ago and I just cannot afford to buy oil to heat our house. Very few of us have that kind of money. We have two kids and it’s early nights for all of us where we have the luxury of an electric blanket to keep us warm,” the letter, posted on 24 March, said. 

The author added that they don’t get any fuel allowance to cover the 100km trip to work and back each day, and that on top of that, they are paying €10 in daily hospital parking charges. 

On the Government’s response to the crisis – which was chiefly to cut excise duty by 20 cent per litre on diesel and 15 cent per litre on petrol – the letter said:

“Our government should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Tonight they’ll all be patting themselves on the back for giving their subjects a measly few pence off the pumps. They’ll go home to warm houses and have hot dinners in front of them. Many of them will be landlords who will collect extortionate rent off the likes of me and won’t care an iota that we are living with no heating and worrying about how we will be able to feed our kids.”

The General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), Phil Ní Sheaghdha, told The Journal that the union believes that the Government “must come to the table” via a forum such as the Labour Employer Economic Forum with “real solutions to the pressures workers are under”. 

Ní Sheaghdha said that nurses and midwives working in communities have to use their own personal cars to carry out their work, and that they “must not be out of pocket due to rising fuel costs”. 

“The INMO is seeking for these workers to receive the highest level of mileage available during this crisis,” she added. 

Ní Sheaghdha further said that a large cohort of healthcare workers can’t live in close proximity to cities they work in due to high rent costs, and a lack of affordable housing. 

“Young nurses are finding themselves paying up to 77% of their monthly take home pay on rent so they can live in cities… this isn’t sustainable” she said. 

In response to the letter that went viral online, a flood of messages came in from other nurses, midwives, healthcare assistants, and even prison officers and gardaí, which have also been shared widely on the page.

The admin of the Facebook group – which garnered its following during the Covid-19 pandemic – said that many workers have gotten in touch about the financial pressure they are under while working on the frontline in Ireland.

Two nurses who are financially struggling at the moment spoke to The Journal in the last week about their experience of the rise in the cost of living:

A community nurse in Donegal

Sophie* is a 38-year-old community nurse living in Donegal, who travels to patients’ homes across the county on a daily basis as part of her work – with the furthest patients being up to 70 kms away. 

She rents a house where she lives with her partner and their three children. Speaking to The Journal on a Thursday, she said due to the cost of fuel, home heating oil, and groceries on top of her rent: “I can tell you right now, I will have zero to my name until next Friday”. 

“It’s gotten so bad, that I had to make the choice that I was going to get oil for my house this week, and because of that I had to cut my grocery shop. I have €30 to spend on groceries until next Friday – and me and my partner both work full-time. 

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Sophie said that the way that the HSE calculates mileage does not fully cover her costs as she can on some weeks travel over 500 kms a week, and that a daily payment for lunch has been taken away.

However, she added that she does feel the health service tries to support nurses, whereas Government support for workers in general is, in her view, lacking. 

“I need to use the mileage money to service my car – I drive so much weekly that I had to change my tyres twice last year – and I’m due an upgrade but I cannot afford it. My car is 5000 miles overdue a service, but I can’t afford it,” she said. 

Sophie’s rent is €1000 a month, she works 30 hours a week and takes home €44,000 a year. She says it is not enough to make ends meet currently. 

“We go over the border to buy drums of oil for the house, we get 40 litres of oil for a fortnight, because that is all we can afford. We really cannot get ahead at the moment, and we have no luxuries,” she said. 

Sophie said that the Government’s cuts to excise duty haven’t materialised in lower prices in her area. 

“The fuel was meant to come down, it’s €2.19 at my local pump here in Donegal town, that’s what it was last week – it hasn’t come down,” she said. 

Sophie added that the current financial stress she’s under gives her real worries about the future. 

“I’m supposed to be saving for a mortgage and realistically I’m probably never going to get there. I expected that the Government would have helped workers in some way. They’ve extended the fuel allowance, they’ve given supports to hauliers, but they haven’t done anything to help workers like me,” she said. 

A senior nurse in Munster working two jobs

Tim* is a senior nurse in a mental health practice in Munster. He has a mortgage on a home where he lives with his partner and his two children. He works as a bouncer two nights a week in order to make ends meet. 

“When it comes to grocery shopping, we managed €200 for two weeks in the past, whereas now it’s gone up to between €240 and €250, so it’s nearly €500,” he said. 

The other big strain on his family is the price of fuel – as their children take part in sports and travel for matches. 

“We could be like ships passing each other in the night getting one to his thing and the other to his, and recently we’ve seen that the cost of all that driving is actually becoming a challenge,” he said. 

Tim said that the financial burden on him and his partner has meant that they’ve had to cut back in areas they never would have thought to before. 

“The kids are suffering with the fact that we don’t have any leftover money any more. Even when we go shopping now, and one of them says, ‘Oh can I have that?’, and it’s a bar or an ice cream, we aren’t just able to say yes anymore,” he said. 

Tim works another job as security for two nights a week in order to make ends meet, on top of a highly demanding job in the health service. The combination has left him often exhausted. 

“Being a nurse is perceived to be a good job and well paid, but it isn’t when the cost of living is so high. I work nights, and then I work on top of that, I often get four, five maximum hours of sleep, and my children are past the age where that should be the case. It means you don’t get rest, you don’t get time with your family,” he said. 

Tim said that he believes more needs to be done to support workers. 

“Cents being cut on fuel isn’t going to cut it. The cost of everything is up and wages aren’t, and we have to start there,” he said. 

*Names have been changed in this article to anonymise interviewees. 

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