Hospital absentee rate

YOUR front page report headlined ‘HSE staff took 100,000 sick days in one month’ (April 20) states that the absentee rate for “support staff” in Beaumont Hospital last January was more than 15%. In fact, the figure you selected relates to just one category of staff — healthcare assistants.

As your readers will appreciate, these are some of the staff most directly exposed to infections. Last January, Beaumont was in the middle of an extensive outbreak of the winter vomiting virus which resulted in increased levels of absenteeism throughout the hospital. Despite this, the overall level of absenteeism in Beaumont that month was just 5.81%, a rate which fell back to under 4% in February.

Patricia Owens