Job cuts among non-medical staff not enough, say consultants

Hospital consultants have said that the 600 job cuts in the health service announced yesterday did not go far enough.

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said last night that the centralisation of services and the consolidation of 11 health boards into one executive agency should have provided scope for a greater reduction in the number of non-frontline staff.

Secretary general of the IHCA Finbarr Fitzpatrick said that the reduction of 600 jobs was "disappointing", given that the original figure being discussed between the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive (HSE) was 2,000.

Mr Fitzpatrick said that a greater reduction in the number of non-frontline staff would have freed up resources to allow for the recruitment of additional doctors and nurses.

He said that if the Government was determined to maintain an overall cap on health service numbers, an increased number of job cuts would have provided greater flexibility for the recruitment of additional frontline personnel.

In a statement yesterday the HSE said that the job reductions represented 0.6 per cent of staff numbers and that it was confident that these could be achieved "over time through natural wastage and without impacting on frontline services". However, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) expressed concern that the Government ceiling on health sector employment could affect frontline staff and "compromise the ability of doctors to deliver patient services".

IMO director of industrial relations Fintan Hourihan questioned how the job cuts could be reconciled with promises to increase employment in the various health strategies.

He said there could be increased reliance on the private sector and this could "exacerbate inequalities".

The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) said the service plan was a recipe for cutbacks involving bed closures and reductions in community services. INO general secretary Liam Doran said nurses, midwives and patient services would be affected by the 600 job cuts.

The Irish Patients Association welcomed the commitment in the plan to invest in accident and emergency services.

Fine Gael Health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey dismissed the HSE plan as offering little in the way of detailed proposals to address the various problems in the health service.

"It's just a bit of window dressing for themselves," he said. "I don't think they've a clue what they're doing with the health service."

Dr Twomey believed the reduction of 600 jobs was a retrograde step, regardless of the aim.