By Alison Moore

Nurses are under so much pressure at work due to increasing workloads and understaffing some need to undergo an ECG during a shift to ensure that their stress symptoms are not as a result of a heart attack.

The claim was made by Mary Leahy of the Galway Branch of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) at its annual delegate conference in Kilkenny.

'It is not unusual nowadays to see colleagues have an ECG done at work. The amount of nurses suffering palpitations is shocking,' she said.

In the case of community nurses, many of whom cover a wide geographical location and spend a significant amount of time on the road, Ms Leahy said that due to overwork it was not unusual for colleagues 'to arrive at a patient's house with no recollection of the journey because of the constant pressure, thinking about the patient you've just seen and the patient you are about to see.'

The implication being that this level of distraction made them a danger to themselves and other road users.

Also addressing a motion that called for the HSE to honour the health and safety provisions it imposes on other employers, INMO Vice-President Geraldine Talty stressed that the health executive had a duty of care to nurses and midwives as employees.

'They must provide safe working environments for us. The Health and Safety Act imposes a primary duty on any employer to ensure that workers are not exposed to health and safety risks arising from their work. This extends to ensuring the emotional and/mental health of all of us.'

Ms Talty asked how nurses and midwives could have endured the increase in workload, increase in expected productivity and stress of the past few years without facing health implications as a result. She warned that an unsafe work environment for health service staff posed a risk to patients.

The INMO called on the Government to recognise these risks and to introduce a minimum nurse to patient ratio of one-to-four.