The INMO wants a nurse to patient ratio of one to four on busy wards.

The annual delegate conference of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has heard international research that shows the rate of mortality increases as the number of nurses falls.

General Secretary of the INMO Liam Doran says nurses and patients are suffering;

During the lunchbreak, Nurse Mary McCormack from Waterford Regional Hospital cut off 14 inches of her hair for wigs for children.

Nurse McCormack  speaks to Juliette Gash about cutting off six years' worth of hair;

And here she is after cutting off all those ponytails;