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NEW FIGURES SHOW that more than 10,000 people have left the health service in the past four years as the HSE has simultaneously had its budget slashed massively and imposed a hiring freeze.
The total number of employees has fallen from 111,770 in 2009 to 101,451 in May of this year.
The biggest drop has been in the area of general support staff, who have had their numbers reduced by more than one fifth. This category of staff includes caterers, maintenance and cleaning staff. Some of the services have been outsourced to private companies in a bid to save money.
The number of medical and dental staff has remained almost the same, but the number of nurses has dropped significantly as many graduates emigrate rather than choose to work in Ireland.
The changes between March 2009 and May 2013 are:
Almost 3,000 employees recently applied for a paid career break in the HSE but the vast majority of applications had to be rejected.
A senior HSE executive told TheJournal.ie that the service is struggling to continue to provide frontline services in the face of ongoing severe cuts and the high number of people leaving.
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Lost almost twice as many nurses as managers. That ratio is the wrong way around and a large part of the problem.
Agree with the sentiment but surely even in HSE there are multiple times more nurses than management. Therefore more nurses leaving is not strange. What matters most, which report does bot show is ratios.
Cannot win with the Irish get ris of them, now why are they leaving/?
Absolutely right Stephen, %’s are what matter.
Ireland has the highest ratio of nurses to physicians:
@Fagan – that figure is somewhat meaningless on account of us not having anywhere near enough doctors.
First point, I’m not the other Fagan. Second point, the unions are as much to blame for the current state of the health service as are the government. Haddington Road is a sell out of the front line workers and protects the higher paid, I.e. the middle management who do nothing but who take most of the money from the health service.
I am one of them statistics. It was a horrible organisation to work for. Poorly over managed. Treat their overworked staff like cr@p. Well done but very sad that nurses and other professionals must seek to pursue their careers for adequate salaries and respect elsewhere.
It is hugely unfair to say Irish nurses are “choosing” to work elsewhere. Nursing graduates are forced to emigrate as the number of nurses employed by the HSE has plummeted.
Conversely, it is true Irish doctors are leaving in droves, due to appalling working conditions, with the HSE struggling to fill posts.
Im not ok with the doctors leaving, they should have to do a certain amount of hours in an Irish hospital, their education is paid for by us after all. If they want to leave as soon as they get their degree then maybe they should foot the education bill.
Let me get this straight:
Young doctors are being forced to emigrate because Ireland’s monopoly employer of doctors treats them appallingly, and your solution, instead of improving the illegal conditions to make working in Ireland bearable, is to oblige them to work in an horrendous system for several years, thereby removing completely any impetus the HSE might have had to ameliorate the situation?
@Emigrating Irish Doc I completely agree with you and I’m sorry for your situation. The Irish Health System has a terrible reputation internationally, many of our hospitals can now only attract doctors from Third World countries.
The government imposed a ban on hiring within the HSE, nurses can only get work with “agencies” but will end up costing that hospital more than if they could hire those nurses themselves. It sounds good to say there’s a hiring freeze in place, but as staff are continually needed these agencies have become huge in recent years to fill that gap – at a price of course, and the exchequer actually ends up paying more. Its a con.
Its almost like there’s a drive to move as many HSE staff as possible to agency as possible, need a nurse, just get an agency nurse, need a porter get an agency porter, a cleaner get an agency cleaner. I heard a conversation a few weeks ago in a hospital between two staff members who said that given a chance, they’d have agency surgeons next.
Who owns these agencies, who are their shareholders, because since this hiring freeze came into effect they have certainly exploited it, are making millions per week conning the public, and don’t want to see the con go anytime soon.
What about other people with diplomas, degrees etc? Should everyone who goes through the education system have to stay because ‘we paid for it’? Pile of cock.
Well Mary if your happy for some one with a history diploma to operate on you fair enough. Me I’d prefer someone qualified who isn’t over tired doing it to be honest.
Kerry I’m not sure what your point is. You agree or you don’t. I wouldn’t mind a history diploma operating on me. It’s the French literature PhDs you have to look out for. Cowboys.
The doctors are being forced to emigrate(by gunpoint I guess) because they can only earn a paltry quarter of a mill in Ireland. You can’t really blame them for being mercenaries.
No amount of money will make doctors stay, if their quality-of-life is poor. You’ll notice I didn’t mention money. I said that doctors, myself included, are leaving Ireland by the proverbial boatload because their working conditions in Ireland are abysmal.
The IMO will be balloting their members next month on industrial action over excessive and illegal working hours. Fewer hours will mean LESS pay for doctors, but that’s what they’re demanding.
I know it’s hard, but try to get your mind off money.
It would be interesting to know how many of the management staff on hugely inflated salaries left the HSE in the same period.
The more you do the more is expected off you.I might as well work in a factory or assembly line.Its a rush from one end of the day till end….Hse end ?but if you have spent a lot of time with your patients to settle them in and reassure them and then do your paperwork …You know ..if its not documented ..It’s not done ..
Top heavy with admin staff who can go by the back door to recruit friends and relatives job seekers into the organisation. Needs a complete shake down
Almost 4,000 nurses, question definitely needs answering why?
Wait, we’ve been told often enough by nursing unions and nurses we personally know. WE know the reasons Dr Reilly would you listen, please. Of course not just like most of his mates in this govt. who I feel very let down by, no chance of them listening to the common woman or man.
Rant stopped.
Something has to be done to stop this departure rate.
It’s so easy correct manning, respect, improved conditions of work, decent wage. Nurses tend to do the job not for high wages.kudos, company/employer provided cars but because (in common with all emergency services, police, fire,ambulance, armed forces) they want to serve and help people just like junior doctors I believe the word is vocation.
Yes THe HSE is in an aful state. There is no management structure overpaid Staff at the top.. It should be dived in two. The HSE is to big for one department there should be two minsters one for the health side and the other for other areas of the service.Where is it all going to end.? I am not surprised at the amount of staff that have left. I know some were offered early Retirment because of Health cutbacks but I am sure many have left because of stress and other issues.
It needs to be acknowledged that this isn’t just about doctors and nurses, nor is it just about hospitals. This freeze includes many different professions and non medical arenas. Social workers (for example) aren’t being employed in areas like disability, mental health, elderly care and child protection. The HSE covers a huge amount of support posts within the community which if filled and run correctly can ease the pressure on other parts of the system. It’s frustrating for me as a social worker to know that there are thousands of posts to be filled but none available to graduates.
It baffles me why the irish state trains nurses so they can immigrate. Logic would tell you if you invest money in training someone you should have a job for them. Equally the trainee should have to sign a contract saying they will work in an irish health care system for so many years
Nonsense.
Staff are resources that you hire, not buy. If you train them, it’s up to you to provide conditions good enough to incentivize them to stay.
Galwaybay
This isn’t anything new Irish nurses have always travelled after qualifying; of my group of thirty that qualified in 1993 only a handful stayed in Ireland.
They gain experience overseas do post grad courses then some come back. It’s the way it’s always been.
Surely people know the terms and conditions when they decide to study to become a doctor, if they are not prepared to work in irish hospitals maybe they should get their training elsewhere so the irish taxpayer isn’t paying for their education.
This always drives me crackers.
The Irish Taxpayer does not pay to educate doctors in third level. Undergraduate Irish students who qualify for free fees are balanced against graduate entry and international students who pay more, and more again to study here.
The system is specifically designed this way so as to be cost neutral.
Therefore, no, we should not be tying a single doctor to the place. And even if we were paying for their education and they were leaving, well that’s our stupidity. They’re entitled to leave, like every other professional. They have a highly desirable qualification, other states have acknowledged this and fixed their systems. Ireland has made the situation worse on 2 fold, firstly the pay has dropped, and secondly the conditions have gotten worse.
If you want to tie doctors to this country then you have to fix the system. Otherwise – let them go.
They do get their training elsewhere. The education costs are mostly paid as discussed by WanderArch above.
I love the ‘You signed up for it’ argument. (You’re lucky to have a job in a shite health system. Now shut up as we make you work godless hours and dole endless amounts of sh1te at you for the next 10 years.) Usually put forward by people who wouldn’t work in a fit.
My terms and conditions say I’m EWTD compliant. I’m not.
They say I will get paid for all hours worked. I will not.
They say I will not work more than 24h consecutively. I will.
They say I will get paid 40% more than I am getting now. I will not.
The HSE does not adhere to the terms and conditions we signed up for.
Thank you for the numbers but could we now have percentages, please. For example, what percentage of admin staff left.
I dont understand how it costs less to get staff in from an agency who are there to make a profit for a third party than employ staff direct,
not to many sure they are doing a great job. that is what they tell themselves…..
Maybe we should clarify management who are overpaid. Surely these like every other Goverment, semi-Goverment or Quango are only the “top” tier. Not sure that junior, middle management are.
Change the name of the HSE and in no time, we’ll forget it ever existed.
Problem solved.
so if we give it a new name the problems will be solved
NHS
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