The Labour party leader has called on the Taoiseach to end the “damaging” recruitment freeze in the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which is putting further pressure on health services.
Ivana Bacik said that many medical professionals are working through the winter months in “impossible and often dangerous environments”.
The current hiring freeze in the HSE was extended in November to almost all staff and grades, with the exception of GPs, consultants and graduate nurses and midwives.
The decision was taken as part of a plan to address the budget overruns last year.
Just now in the #Dáil I called on Gov to lift the HSE recruitment freeze & address the overcrowding crisis in #hospitals - with ref to the UHL case highlighted by @ConorSheehan93 #Limerick @INMO_IRL @shaunabowerss https://t.co/WEcZ8Drrw8
Advertisement— Ivana Bacik (@ivanabacik) January 24, 2024
However, speaking in the Dáil, Ms Bacik claimed the government’s policies were “hurting people” in hospitals.
“I am talking about the current HSE recruitment freeze, about overcrowding, long waiting lists, a trolley crisis, a retention crisis and a lack of community supports for those discharged from hospital and the list goes on.
“Every week, we all hear healthcare horror stories, we hear from patients detailing awful experiences in hospital emergency departments, from people worrying about healthcare access for older parents or younger children.
“From people with complex medical needs who are afraid of getting sick if they go into hospital and from frontline medical workers who are exhausted and worn out looking to greener pastures in Australia, New Zealand or elsewhere.
“All that is achieved by the recruitment freezes is to put more pressure on services.”
She told the Dáil of the grandfather of Labour councillor Conor Sheehan, who spent more than 90 hours waiting at the emergency department of University Hospital Limerick (UHL) earlier this week.
132 people on trolleys in @ULHospitals including my 87 year old grandad who there since Thursday, moved several times and is on a corridor at the age of 87 in A&E. There are 7 elderly people on the same corridor. He is frail and confused. This is a complete failure by Government.
— Conor Sheehan (@ConorSheehan93) January 22, 2024
Advertisement
She said the 87-year-old man spent four days on a trolley.
“Will you end the damaging recruitment freeze, address the trolley crisis and ensure that our hospitals are safe?”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that the HSE has hired an extra, 1,019 medical and dental staff last year, an extra 2,100 nurses and midwives last year and an extra 929 health and social care professionals.
Mr Varadkar said: “It’s important to say what that actually means, and what that actually means is that the HSE can hire an additional 2,000 staff and so we’ve had a big increase in the number of staff in the HSE and they can hire an extra 2,000 staff this year.
“What we can’t have, as what we’ve seen in the past, is the HSE getting approval for one group of staff, not hiring them and hiring a different group of staff instead.
“So we have to put some decent control on this. But the recruitment embargo, as it described, actually means they can hire 2,000 extra people this year and of course, it doesn’t apply for example to graduate nurses and midwives, it doesn’t apply to consultants or GPs.”
Ms Bacik called for the “full recruitment freeze” to be lifted across all grades.
