Delays in cancer therapy as gaps in health staffing 'frightening', unions warn
Fórsa members protest outside Cork University Hospital on Thursday. Picture: Chani Anderson
Gaps in health staffing are “frightening”, with student nurses working alone with very sick patients and vital cancer therapy delayed, unions have warned.
Protests at Cork University Hospital (CUH) and HSE headquarters in Dublin involved the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, Fórsa, and Siptu.
Student nurses, who asked not to be named, described hospital pressures.
One, aged 20 and in her third year, said she is constantly asked by overstretched nurses to work outside her training. She could be removed from her course for this.
“It’s not the nurses’ fault because if I wasn’t doing it that patient might not get that done for them,” she said. “That could be someone in pain or getting an infection. You could be shouted at by their family for not getting it done.”
Another, aged 21 and in fourth year, said: “You start to feel you are not doing enough, you are not doing well. Your confidence goes south.”
A recruitment freeze across most of the HSE between October 2023 and July 2024 was replaced by a "pay and numbers strategy".
Phil Ní Sheaghdha, INMO general secretary, said this is “a blunt instrument” and staff “do not believe it is safe".
"It puts patients at risk," she said.
“It means we still have caps on recruitment; we will have posts unfilled.”
Any jobs vacant in December 2023 are not being filled, unions said. This includes jobs approved before the freeze.
Ashley Connolly, head of Fórsa's health and welfare division, said those jobs are “decommissioned”, with budgets based on posts filled in December only.
“You cannot replace vacancies unless you have the budget to do so,” she said, adding that some therapy teams have 40% vacancies.
Both unions will ballot for industrial action.
Shonagh Byrne, organiser in Siptu's health professional and nursing sectors, said many areas face pressures.
“We want to see the HSE introduce a safe staffing framework for all grades to ensure quality and safe patient delivery,” she said.
Hospitals, including CUH, cannot recruit radiation therapists, she said.
People Before Profit TD Brid Smith said at the Dublin protest: "It's leading to a lack of safety standards in the health services, and that is frightening. We already had the death of that young woman in Limerick being investigated."
The HSE said “unprecedented” staffing equivalent to 129,000 full-time positions will be reached by December.
CEO Bernard Gloster said it is "an inaccurate narrative" to say finance is more important than patient safety to the HSE.
“The number of medical staff at CUH has increased by 47%; nursing and midwifery staffing has increased by 38%; and health and social care professionals by 31% [since 2020],” he said.
“These are real jobs with real people making a real difference. It is important that people hear and know that, and it is certainly not indicative of the HSE having disregard for patient safety.”
