Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has claimed there is no real link between healthcare staff recruitment and hospital performance.
Healthcare dominated Dáil Leaders’ Questions on Thursday, with Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty referring to a 21 per cent rise in the number of over-75s who have spent more than 24 hours in emergency departments this year, saying it was “shameful” and “cruel” that an elderly person “would have to go through this”.
Claiming the situation had worsened under Carroll MacNeill’s leadership, Doherty said senior managers in the health system had been unable to recruit since June due to HSE employment restrictions and were warning of risks to the safety delivery of services.
“In the Midwest alone there are 350 posts that are vacant,” he said.
The way senior managers were speaking out was “unprecedented”, he said, and they were doing so because “they’re telling us they have no other choice” and are “very, very worried”.
Carroll MacNeill said demand had increased in every area and every hospital. Giving detailed statistics about a number of hospitals, she added that “the reality is that there are some hospitals that have not improved that need to improve”.
“Tell me why is Beaumont different to Cork [University Hospital],” she said to Doherty. “Both of them have recruited. Both of them have the same demand pressures. Both of them have needs for the future into 2027 [which the budget] has delivered.
“But Beaumont have nine people on trolleys, whereas Cork have four. They are using things differently.”
She said St James’s Hospital, “one of the biggest, busiest hospitals in this country, in an area of particular socio-economic disadvantage”, has 10 people on trolleys, “but Cork has 44”.
“And bizarrely, the ones that consistently don’t improve, ie Cork, have had the highest recruitment,” with 233 people recruited, Carroll MacNeill said.
“So, if there was a correlation between recruitment and performance, I’d agree with you.”
Labour health spokeswoman Marie Sherlock said hospitals “are terrified of what’s in store this winter” as she accused the Minister and the Department of Public Expenditure of failing to properly plan the health budget.
She said Budget 2027 was based on a 2 per cent growth in demand when “actual demand” far surpasses that, with emergency department admissions up 6.75 per cent this year and a 10 per cent increase in outpatient appointments.
Sherlock said she had responses from the HSE that “they’re only forecasting demand for next year now after they get their budget allocation. No wonder the health service is in crisis. No commercial viable business will ever operate like that.”
She added it made no sense that there is an embargo on recruiting graduate nurses when agency staff payments are “surging ahead by €255 million”.