Some 163 full-time jobs are to be lost at Dublin's Mater Hospital in the latest round of health cutbacks announced yesterday. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
The job losses will be brought about by not filling vacant posts and not renewing staff contracts, rather than through compulsory redundancies.
The hospital's chief executive, Mr Martin Cowley, has told staff in an internal memo that the jobs will have to go to comply with a "staff ceiling" imposed by the Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA).
This ceiling is ultimately determined by the Department of Health and is being rigorously enforced since it emerged last year that there were nearly 4,000 more people employed in the health service than had been approved by the Department of Finance. But despite the imposition of a ceiling, the number of approved posts in the health service is actually increasing and now stands at 96,000.
Other hospitals and health boards will also have to cut staff numbers to comply with this ceiling. The ERHA said last night it had established there were 248 more employees in its hospitals and agencies than were approved. Its employment ceiling is about 38,000. "Those 248 jobs will have to be reduced," a spokeswoman said. They would be reduced through "natural wastage".
The Mater Hospital memo said: "The Department of Health have put in place rigorous employment control measures for 2003 and beyond. The Mater Hospital has now been informed of its ceiling which is 2,196 wholetime equivalent posts. In order to comply with the staff ceiling allocated by the ERHA, the hospital must now reduce the number of wholetime equivalent posts by 163".
A statement by the hospital last night said it wished to make clear "it does not currently intend to terminate or break any existing employment contracts in place with staff".
The job cuts were signalled earlier this month when the five Dublin teaching hospitals, which include the Mater, announced they would have to close 250 beds and treat 14,000 fewer patients this year.
They said there would also be a reduction in the use of agency staff, temporary contracts would not be renewed and vacant positions would not be filled.
The Mater Hospital, which is the national centre for cardiac surgery, has already closed more than 80 beds this year.
Ms Liz McManus, the Labour party's health spokeswoman, accused the Government of starving the country's hospitals of much-needed resources. "It is now clear that other hospitals in the service will face similar job losses if the cutbacks are to continue. This will mean thousands of fewer medical procedures being conducted, increasing hospital waiting lists and more patients suffering on trolleys in accident and emergency wards," she said.
Fine Gael's health spokeswoman, Ms Olivia Mitchell, said the job cutsamounted to a dismantling of the health service.