INMO warns of staff ‘burnout’
The HSE has said that it plans for its recruitment controls to remain in place for as short a time as possible amidst mounting pressure from the INMO.
New figures from the INMO recently showed that more than 1,300 funded nursing and midwifery posts are currently vacant in Ireland, something the organisation attributes directly to the HSE’s ongoing recruitment freeze.
“The figures are stark. The Government are refusing to fill frontline healthcare posts. Make no mistake, this will lead to compromised patient care and staff burnout,” said INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha.
She added: “Midwifery is being hit particularly hard by the recruitment ban. One in six posts are left vacant. Even if we filled all of these posts, we would still fall far short of the safe staffing levels promised by the Government.”
In a recent statement the HSE responded by saying that the controls are in place to ensure that the HSE is demonstrating that it is “living within the available resources” provided to it by Government.
The statement went on to confirm that the controls will mean, that in some hospital groups and CHOs, non-critical replacement posts will be paused.
Ms Ní Sheaghdha said that the recruitment ban has got to go and that it breaches agreements made with the INMO, drives up agency costs, puts frontline staff under extra pressure and puts patients’ lives at risk.
He said: “Until we can get staffing up to safe levels, we are calling on the HSE to scale back services and close many non-essential wards.”
According to the INMO, in 2017 the HSE pledged to increase the number of midwives from 1,409 by 210 additional staff by the end of 2018 to ensure safety levels.
As of July 2019, the IMNO said that, rather than showing an increase, the number of midwives in Ireland has dropped to 1,403.
Ms Ní Sheaghdha said: “Graduating nurses and midwives are considering their employment options as we speak. Yet despite repeated public promises from the Minister for Health that they would all have full-time permanent jobs upon graduation, the majority have not received offers or contracts. Irish graduating nurses and midwives are now being turned away from understaffed hospitals.”
In its statement, the HSE insisted that while there are vacant midwifery posts, maternity units continue to recruit to these posts within allocated budgets, and that overall staff numbers in acute hospitals have grown by 2078 since May 2018.
According to numbers released by the INMO yesterday, CUH was the most overcrowded hospital in the country with 59 patients awaiting beds for treatment.
On 2 August, the INMO stated that Cork health services have been plunged into a crisis due to a combination of problems including record overcrowding levels, hundreds of vacant frontline positions, profound shortages in community nursing and chronic recruitment and retention problems.