Admin staff essential to health service

Your claim that there’s one manager for every six frontline health workers is way off the mark (Irish Examiner, October 10). A proper look at the figures shows that about 4% of health staff are in non-frontline admin or management jobs. That’s because most ‘administrative’ workers deliver services directly to the public or assist doctors, nurses and other health professionals. For instance, the ‘managers’ you attack include medical secretaries and reception staff. Would it be better to have doctors and nurses booking appointments and typing instead of treating patients?

And the 4% of admin staff who don’t work in the ‘front line’ do important things like maintaining medical records, dealing with patients’ rights under freedom of information laws, buying vital supplies and paying the bills, and making sure doctors and nurses are recruited and paid.

It’s easy to criticise administrative staff. But those who do so should ask themselves whether they want doctors and nurses treating patients or spending their time on administrative work.

Bernard Harbor

Information Officer

IMPACT trade union

Nerneys Court

Dublin 1