The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has attacked a suspension of the recruitment of doctors, nurses and midwives in hospitals, saying the move will cost lives.
The HSE announced on Thursday no new staff within these grades will be taken on until further notice, and no further expressions of interest or formal job offers will be made.
The move has been met with rancour by unions and some politicians, and INMO deputy general secretary David Hughes said it will exacerbate an already difficult situation in Irish hospitals.
“The health service and hospitals are already operating under severe strain due to lack of staffing. We are short by over 3,600 nurses and midwives already and this embargo will make an intolerable situation utterly impossible,” he said.
“It is simply not possible to deliver safe care with such an embargo in place and this irresponsible act on the part of the HSE will cost lives,” he added.
In a statement, the HSE said the suspension will be enforced “pending agreement and approval of a workforce plan for each hospital group”, but no specific timeline for completion of this process was mentioned.
Mr Hughes concluded by calling on the new Minister for Health to intervene.
‘Utter chaos’
"The INMO are calling on the new Minister for Health, Mr Simon Harris, to immediately intervene and ensure that the recruitment of nurses and midwives continues in the public interest and to prevent utter chaos in an already severely strained health service."
Meanwhile, the Irish Medical Organisation, which represents doctors, said the suspension will deal a “hammer blow” to efforts to tackle the crisis in Irish hospitals.
“We are experiencing unprecedented difficulty in encouraging doctors to work in our public health service and in these circumstances it is ironic that the message from the HSE is ‘Don’t bother to apply – there is no future in Irish public hospitals’,” said the organisation’s president, Dr John Duddy.
“This is an affront to everyone working in the health service and will convince doctors that there is no future in an under-resourced health service,” he added.
The suspension was also criticised by Siptu, which demanded that the HSE reverse the decision.
“The impact of this decision cannot be understated. It will lead to a severe reduction in crucial patient services while critical vacancies across the service remain unfilled,” it said.
