The decision of the HSE to introduce a pause on recruitment for clerical, administrative and managerial grades will effectively mean vacant posts will not be filled and responsibility will fall on current staff to carry out the work of those roles, according to Forsa’s national secretary for Health and Welfare Ashley Connelly.
It comes as Fórsa members working in clerical and administrative roles in the HSE voted in favour of taking industrial action on Thursday.
The recruitment pause will have an impact on clinical teams, she added, because they will not have the necessary admin support which is vital and crucial to the delivery of health services, she told Newstalk Breakfast.
“It means their clinical time will now be taken up doing administrative functions and that is just not acceptable.
“The HSE is too quick to look to external private consultants to be able to deliver work that should be done in-house, and instead of addressing that overspend, what they have done is put in place a harsh recruitment pause on Fórsa members only,” Ms Connelly said.
The HSE’s use of external consults at a cost of “hundreds of millions” was “reckless” and unnecessary, she added.
Fórsa members are “absolutely angry, and they are feeling very undervalued as they play a crucial role,” Mr Connelly said, adding: “Some members working in the clerical mainstream are the first person that you meet when you go into a hospital. They are the person that you ring when you need to get your consultant appointment or your X-ray appointment. They are crucial to the delivery of services and they cannot be dismissed as expendable.”
She said the HSE should be engaging collectively with the group of trade unions to address these problems.
She gave the example that if two people work in an office and one goes on maternity leave, that person will not be replaced and the remaining worker is expected to carry out their duties, in addition to their own.
“They are fed up with a system that looks to them to be scapegoated,” Ms Connelly said.
