HSE staff freeze one of most short-sighted decisions ever, IMO told

THE recruitment ban in the health service was yesterday described as one of the most short-sighted decisions ever taken by the HSE.

Doctors at the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) conference in Killarney, also heard calls for the lifting of the staff embargo, imposed in late 2007. Chief executive George McNeice said the IMO was assured last year that the regime of cutbacks was a short-term measure in order to meet arbitrary budget targets, but, subsequently, that was not the case.

He also accused top management in the health service of adopting “a my way or the highway” attitude towards the operation of the service.

And, after decades of being left languishing in disrepair due to a lack of adequate funding, investment was needed on a massive scale, said Mr McNeice.

In his report to delegates, he said: “It would be no understatement to say that, in the past year, we watched agog as the health service in Ireland stumbled from controversy to crisis. Time and time again, those who steer the health service have left no one in any doubt that their mantra has become and remains ‘my way or the highway’.

“The recruitment ban announced towards the end of last year — which has not been lifted — is surely one of the most shortsighted decisions ever taken by the HSE,” he said.

Mr McNeice said three months into the new financial year and the IMO was already being told cutbacks were to be implemented in order to address a projected overrun of e300 million.

“This is just farcical,” he said. He further claimed morale among health service employees was at an all-time low and patient confidence was also seriously dented.

“Yet, there is still no serious tangible commitment from government despite its strident protestations about the amount of funding voted to health to deliver upon its duty to provide a first class public health system for all citizens,” he said.

In relation to the issue of the consultants’ common contract, Mr McNeice said he was astounded 2,000 hours had been spent on negotiating a contract and warned Health Minister Mary Harney the creation of two classes of consultant posts would bring division into hospital departments.

He also said the obsession with the privatisation of medicine was a cause for great concern. “Private healthcare chooses cost effective, low risk procedures. It cannot now, and will never be able, to replicate the work and caseload of the public system.”