The primary focus of the healthcare system is now monetary considerations rather than patients’ safety, according to Phil Ní Sheaghdha, the executive leader of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO). She expressed these concerns ahead of a chain of midday demonstrations designed to draw attention to the understaffing issue.
She voiced on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that the current restrictions, limitations, and procedures in hiring are highly limited and its process has turned much more challenging. Prominent labour unions like INMO, Fórsa, and Siptu, which collectively represent the personnel in the public healthcare industry, plans a noon protest on Thursday at key locations like the Cork University Hospital and the HSE head office in Dublin. This demonstration is an answer to persistent disagreements concerning staffing.
Every evaluation of the healthcare system has cited staffing levels as the key problem, as per Ms Ní Sheaghdha. She asserted the need for laws to ensure that when agreements are reached about appropriate staffing levels, these must be based on and measured by patient safety standards, implemented accordingly and not prone to yearly funding reductions or purposeful delays in hiring – issues which are making the service unsafe.
The authority to fill roles when required has been taken away from nursing directors, shifting focus towards financial aspects rather than patient safety, which has been causing dissatisfaction among health workers employed in the system, she highlighted.
More individuals are applying for nursing roles than the number available, she further drew attention to. She issued a clarification that the freeze on hiring had not been revoked last July. Instead, any roles vacant since December 2023, as per HSE’s decision, has been eradicated making the situation direr.
By their reckoning, there are just above 2,000job vacancies for nurses and midwives that can’t be filled now because they were deemed non-existent since the July decision.
The necessity and demand for more staff in our medical facilities are apparent; it’s a recurring topic of local community gatherings. The shortages, after all, are undeniable whenever one uses the public healthcare services. Regrettably, according to the Health Service Executive (HSE), they are dealing with a financial squeeze, which will prevent sufficient recruitment for safe patient care.
The ongoing and impending protests by healthcare staff are for the sole purpose of advocating for safe working conditions, according to Ms Ní Sheaghdha.
Both the INMO and Fórsa, along with numerous other unions, have raised their concerns on the employment restrictions and staffing limitations set out in HSE’s Pay and Numbers Strategy (PNS), introduced at this summer’s onset.
The unions’ gripe is that due to the imposed boundaries’ unconsidered nature, a multitude of positions that existed but were momentarily empty at last year’s end became virtually non-existent once the PNS quotas came about.
Conversely, the HSE maintains that it was necessary to establish budget and staffing confines. They argue that the current numbers signify significant growth in health service employment, particularly when compared to the workforce size at the commencement of the pandemic in 2020.