Health service work-to-rule
Deputy Sherlock raises the looming work-to-rule by nearly 70,000 health workers, blaming severe understaffing and agency costs. The Taoiseach says disputes should go through established industrial relations procedures and again points to staffing growth.
Almost 70,000 health workers will go on work-to-rule next Monday. The issue is not about pay or conditions but the intolerable staffing levels in our health service. Not every part of the health service is impacted, but where it is staff are at boiling point. What action is the Government going to take to avert the industrial dispute that will start on Monday? We have gross understaffing in parts of our mental health and disability services, particularly in the community. Within hospitals, the spend on agency has increased to €250 million this year. The cost has been increasing in recent years. Even our new national children's hospital, the jewel in the crown of the health service, is 382.8 whole-time equivalents short of what is required to maintain existing services when they move into the new building next year.
A report was sent by Children's Health Ireland to the HSE and the Department of Health in October 2023 but it is yet to receive a response. The public are expecting at the very least the same level of service, and indeed more services, when the new hospital opens next year. We need that staffing.
Comment on this
There are established and well-tried industrial relations procedures to deal with any disputes that arise, particularly in our health service. As I said, there has been a significant increase in healthcare staff in recent years, higher than any comparable period before 2020.
For any new health facility, there will be engagement on the staffing arrangements for the new facility. That is not new in the context of other facilities that have been opened in the past. There will have to be a correct deployment in terms of numbers and so on to ensure not only the standard of the physical attributes, if you like, of the new hospital, which will be state of the art when completed, but also to ensure a sufficiency of human capital, the people working there, the doctors, nurses, social and healthcare professionals, and all the other staff who work in the hospital. I am sure that will be worked out between the different bodies and agencies.