The president of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has described the HSE’s €77 million winter plan as “inadequate”, saying it is not enough to address the issues facing the health service.
Dr Ina Kelly told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that the plan was not going to be sufficient to turn around the problems facing the service. A lot of the investment included in the plan had already been in the planning stages, she said.
The winter plan was “not the answer to what is facing us in the coming months,” she added.
There were huge capacity issues in the health system, especially for intensive care beds. This had been the case prior to the pandemic and the system now had very little capacity to deal with something like Covid, said Dr Kelly.
There was also a shortage of staff from a medical point of view, and this manpower issue urgently needed to be addressed. Staff were exhausted and were very overworked. There were 700 vacant consultant posts, she pointed out.
Working time
There was no adherence to European working time directives which was dangerous, warned Dr Kelly.
General practices were also overstretched at present and this problem was going to grow as more GPs retired. “There is a major manpower issue that Covid has shown up.”
The only way to overcome the manpower issue was to overcome the "disincentives", Dr Kelly said. The fundamental issue of staff shortages meant there now was not capacity to deal with the increased numbers as a result of Covid.
“€77 million seems a small addition given the demands on the health service, it’s small when dealing with an issue of this magnitude.”
It was important that the health service be properly funded, when there was underinvestment it meant that the rest of society suffered as well. Dr Kelly said that €77 million was inadequate and did not address the problems facing the service.
