IRELAND'S acute hospitals have lost more nurses than administrative staff in the past year-and-a-half as the crisis in the health service deepens.

As figures obtained by the Sunday Tribune accentuate fears over staffing, it is reported that Britain's National Health Service (NHS) has been in Ireland recruiting "in their droves" Irish nurses who qualified this month but have no domestic prospects.

Since December 2008, staff levels in Ireland's acute services alone have fallen by nearly 930 across all sectors.

Major hospitals in Dublin's north-east region were the biggest losers with 350 staff positions unfilled in that period. That was followed by the Dublin mid-Leinster region (254), the southern region (166) and the west (161).

Nursing alone accounted for one quarter of all losses, with a total of 226 positions wiped out in just 18 months.

By contrast, administrative, management and clerical staff lost just 194 positions, although proportionally there are more nursing positions than management, making them more likely to go unfilled.

However, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) says the real picture is much bleaker with nursing staff, including those in areas outside acute services, falling by 2,200 since December 2007.

"That is the number of posts. It may not be the number of people because there may have been part-time posts and so the headcount might be higher if two people make up one post," said Liam Doran, general secretary of the INMO.

He said while conditions and work loads for nurses are now "intolerable" in acute hospitals, none of the 1,600 newly-qualified staff coming out of universities will find work in Ireland.

"A very significant number of these are already being pencilled in to go to work in the NHS, who have come over in their droves to recruit," he said. "We have a brain drain of the highest order going on at the moment."

In 2009, only 10% of a year's nursing graduates were still in Ireland nine months after qualifying.