NEARLY 2,700 posts in the health service have gone unfilled since controversial recruitment restrictions were implemented last autumn, according to a financial report given to the board of the Health Service Executive (HSE) last week.
The report says that overall numbers employed in the health service have now fallen for seven months in a row, and stood at 110,297 at the end of March.
At the end of last August there were nearly 113,000 whole-time equivalent posts in the HSE. This represents a decrease of 2,686 whole-time equivalent posts.
The report says while some of the job reductions in the service are due to seasonal factors and the ending of some student nurse placements, "the majority would have resulted from the recruitment pause put in place on September 4th, 2007, and the tight employment control process in place from the start of 2008".
It says employment numbers in the hospital sector are 2,206 over the Government ceiling, while on the community side, staffing levels are 2,551 below those officially permitted.
The recruitment restrictions were introduced by the HSE to deal with a €200 million financial overrun last year, and a projected €300 million deficit in 2008.
Details of the scale of employment reductions in the health sector come as around 28,000 staff prepare to take industrial action in protest at the recruitment restrictions.
The union Impact, which represents health professionals and therapists, social care workers, administrative and managerial staff, says its members will refuse to co-operate with HSE advisers or the HSE's transformation programme as part of the industrial action from Wednesday of next week.
It has also said its members will block non-emergency overtime, out-of-hours work and refuse to cover work and posts affected by the recruitment freeze introduced by the HSE.
Impact has also warned of possible other forms of action, including work stoppages "in particular services or certain parts of the country".
The HSE management is to meet Impact on the recruitment restrictions before the union's annual conference this week, at which health cutbacks will be a major topic of discussion.
The HSE ended a controversial recruitment ban at the end of last year. However, it immediately put in place other restrictions under which only critical frontline vacancies which arose before 2008 could be filled - and then only if other posts which became vacant were suppressed. The new financial report says that the HSE recorded a deficit of €80 million in the first quarter.
However, separate exchequer return figures have revealed that this figure increased to €95 million by April.
It maintains that the HSE has been in discussion with the Department of Health and Minister for Health Mary Harney regarding "proposed remedial actions and options to improve our financial position".
A spokesman for Ms Harney declined to comment yesterday on these options.