'Broken and burnt out': Nurse lifts lid on staffing at children's cancer unit
A whistleblower who resigned from the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children over staff shortages has said the system left her broken, disillusioned and burnt out.
Hannah Farrell, who left the Children's Cancer Unit in 2019, said the lack of support and management's failure to listen to her and other nurses led her to resign.
Parents of sick children and former staff members contacted BBC News NI after it was revealed more than half of the specialist nurse team at the cancer unit are currently off work, a problem that Ms Farrell said was not new.
In a statement, the Belfast Health Trust said there had been "significant investment" in the unit's service development in the last decade.
It added that this included "an increase across all nursing bands, and the development of specialist nursing roles".
The trust said it wanted to thank the "hard-working nurses" and wider staff at the unit for their work "particularly during times of pressure, to ensure the safe and timely care of our patients and the support they provide to families".
Ms Farrell said that for years maternity leave, long-term sickness and career breaks at the unit were not backfilled, meaning wards were insufficiently staffed.
She said that raised pressure on colleagues and had the potential to impact patients, but the issues were not addressed.
"When a ward goes into crisis like it did a few weeks ago, the trust takes nurses from other wards, which just puts a band aid on it," she said.
"It's a quick fix, all we've done is impact other wards negatively and we haven't fixed the problem."
Source: BBC News, 18 August 2025