Recruitment cap kills off health strategy, warn nurses

HEALTH chiefs have claimed that the Health Strategy is dead in the water following the Budget decision to cap recruitment to the public services.

Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) general secretary Liam Doran said the Government couldn’t possibly hope to implement the strategy without extra nursing staff. “Who is going to man the extra 3,000 beds promised under the strategy? There can be no increased bed capacity if the staff aren’t in place to provide the care.”

The strategy has promised an extra 3,000 beds by 2011, the first 709 to be in place by the end of 2003.

Mr Doran said the cap on recruitment would mean extended bed closures, creating a knock-on effect on A&E’s, already hit by bed shortages.

Plans to increase by 700 the number of elderly care beds and step-down beds would also be hit, he said.

Health Minister Micheal Martin said he understood Mr Doran’s concerns, but that it was too early to say which sectors of the public service would be hit by Mr McCreevy’s capping announcement and his plans to cut the number of public sectors workers by 5,000 in the next three years.

“The impact of the announcement has yet to be fleshed about in the various departments, butwe have 96,000 health service employees, up 30,000 since 1997. Where the cuts in public sector workers take place is yet to be worked out.”

Mr Martin also responded to criticism from NAMHI, the national association for the mentally handicapped, who described the extension of the Carer’s grant as a ‘paltry concession.’ The weekly threshold for means testing applicants for the allowance has been increased from €191 (single) to €210 (couple) and €382 (single) to €420 (couple). However, NAMHI general secretary Deirdre Carroll said the change would not bring any significant number of carers into the grant net.

She said out of 100,000 carers, only 20,000 currently qualify. She also said the 100 increase in the respite grant, up to 735, would only benefit about 30,000 carers, because it was tied to the carer’s grant and the domiciliary care allowance.

Mr Martin said the bottom line was the money was simply not available to extend the grant any further.

He also admitted that there would be a very limited increase in the number of residential, respite and day care places made available to the mentally handicapped this year.

There are 1,711 mentally handicapped currently on a waiting list for residential care.

“We simply do not have the wherewithal of previous years. There has been significant investment since 2000, with 2,000 extra daycare places, 950 residential and 360 respite. But the money is not there this year to maintain the level of provision of places of the last few years.”

Plans to use monies from the Dormant Funds Account to fund projects for children with learning disabilities has also been criticised by NAMHI, as short-sighted.

“It is once again evidence of the government’s attitude to people with intellectual disabilities. Rather than rely on core department budgetary lines we are sent to the dreaded area of once-off schemes with no long term future or planning built in,” Ms Carroll said.