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| Ireland had a patient-to-nurse ratio of 6.9 to one in 2009-10 |
Research conducted in nine European countries, including Ireland, has identified a link between the number of nurses employed in a hospital and patient deaths after common surgical procedures.
The study, published online today in the The Lancet, found that better education and better staffing of nurses reduced the number of patient deaths.
Every extra patient added to a nurse's workload increases the risk of death within a month of surgery by 7%, according to data from 300 European hospitals in the nine countries.
The situation is made worse by employing poorly qualified nurses, the research showed.
When nurses had university degrees, this went a long way towards making up for reduced staffing levels.
A 10% increase in the proportion of nurses holding a bachelor degree was associated with 7% lower surgical death rates.
Ireland had a patient-to-nurse ratio of 6.9 to one, Norway had 5.2, the Netherlands 7.0, Finland and Sweden 7.6, and England 9.0.
US expert Professor Linda Aiken, from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, who led the research, said: "Our findings emphasise the risk to patients that could emerge in response to nurse staffing cuts under recent austerity measures, and suggest that an increased emphasis on bachelor's education for nurses could reduce hospital deaths."
The study, which also included researchers from Dublin City University, analysed information on more than 420,000 patients admitted to hospitals in Ireland, Belgium, England, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
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