Hospitals in Cork, Limerick and Tralee braced for protests over recruitment freeze
Among hospitals which will see protests on Wednesday or Thursday are Cork University Hospital, University Hospital Kerry, University Hospital Limerick, University Hospital Waterford as well as hospitals in Clonmel, Nenagh and Wexford. File picture
Hospitals around Ireland will see lunchtime protests by clerical and managerial staff next week against the HSE recruitment freeze—including in Cork, Limerick and Tralee.
Some national reform projects have already been hit by delays linked to a non-co-operation action by trade union Forsa which these protests are highlighting.
Anger and frustration at the recruitment freeze has been growing. It has expanded from administrative staff to almost all HSE roles, while staff argue they remain under-staffed for the workload they face.
Among hospitals which will see protests on Wednesday or Thursday are Cork University Hospital, University Hospital Kerry, University Hospital Limerick, University Hospital Waterford as well as hospitals in Clonmel, Nenagh and Wexford.
Hospitals across Dublin, Louth, Galway, Mayo, Kildare and Wicklow will also see protests.
A Forsa spokesman said these protests are “unlikely to have a big impact on services, but is an opportunity for our members to remind the local public in each location that they are currently in dispute.”
Non-co-operation has seen staff step away from a range of duties including taking on responsibilities linked to vacant posts. They are declining to ‘act up’ and take on duties of a higher grade.
They are not co-operating with private management consultancy firms hired by the HSE or local hospitals. This includes firms such as PWC or EY doing work which staff say they should be doing or trained up to do.
Among national projects affected are the re-organising of public health services into HSE Health Regions (formerly called regional health areas) and the roll-out of a new financial system.
This IFMS (Integrated Financial Management and Procurement System) was discussed by the Oireachtas Health Committee on Wednesday.
Department of Health official Louise McGirr said the total capital cost is €82m but she was unable to give a definite completion date to Social Democrat TD Roisin Shortall.
The initial roll-out has run into difficulties, she said, and "a further issue is the lack of co-operation with Forsa in terms of IFMS which is slowing down the delivery of further phases of the project."
Staff are also not co-operating with a project moving the HSE's eight regional digital databases into one central domain, the HealthIrl Computer Domain Migration Project.
The HSE previously said the freeze was needed as they have already exceeded hiring targets for this year. The Department of Health said by the end of September the equivalent of 1,793 full-time workers were added to this category or 333 above targets.
