{"id":607432,"date":"2026-08-28T16:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T16:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/607432\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T16:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T16:48:09","slug":"health-minister-accused-of-being-dismissive-of-safety-concerns-at-cuh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/607432\/","title":{"rendered":"Health minister accused of being &#8216;dismissive&#8217; of safety concerns at CUH"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">A Cork TD and a lead consultant in CUH have both accused the health minister of being dismissive of concerns raised by the hospital\u2019s CEO around unsafe staffing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Its CEO Jennifer Kearney asked in a <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41899492.html\"> letter to the HSE <\/a> for the approval of a minimum of 172 priority posts ahead of winter, a fraction of the total figure of more than 1,050 staff she said the hospital is down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said on RT\u00c9 radio that the hospital has had a \u201cvery significant increase in staffing\u201d and that other hospitals are managing with less resources.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Cork Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide, who used to work at CUH, described the minister\u2019s comments as \u201cextraordinarily dismissive\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cWhat is striking is the attempt to turn a staffing deficit, created by Government, into a management failing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The chairman of the CUH consultant staff committee, Professor Greg Fulton, accused the minister of \u201ctaking a crack at our CEO\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">He added: \u201cWe\u2019d urge her not to be quite so dismissive of our position.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">A HSE South West spokesperson told  The Echo that at the end of last month, CUH was operating at 258.67 whole-time equivalent (WTE) staff above its approved workforce limit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The spokesperson was asked whether the figure of almost 260 staff above CUH\u2019s approved workforce limit means that the HSE would like to see staff reductions in the hospital; how the limit was decided; and if it was a concern that the limit appears to be at odds with what the hospital\u2019s CEO says is required.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The spokesperson said that there was no embargo on the recruitment of approved and funded posts in CUH: \u201cThere is, however, a newly-introduced sequencing process to manage the significant overruns that have occurred in CUH and across the service.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">This new sequencing process comes as Ms Kearney, in her letter, blamed \u201cincreasingly bureaucratic processes around the prioritisation and re-prioritisation of posts, rather than timely resolution of the underlying clinical need\u201d for the staffing issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cServices are already reducing capacity, cancelling patients, and relying on expensive temporary solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">New figures show that agency staff spending at the hospital is set to increase again this year. Over \u20ac10.4m has already been spent on agency staff in 2026 to June, while \u20ac19m was spent in the whole of 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The staff figures were provided to Sinn F\u00e9in TD Thomas Gould, who said: \u201cThe Government is restricting direct recruitment with one hand, while paying private agencies a substantial premium with the other.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cPublic money in Cork should build permanent frontline capacity, not fuel private agency profits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Cork TD and a lead consultant in CUH have both accused the health minister of being dismissive&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[129137,79,103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":["post-607432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-cuh","tag-cork-news","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}