HSE ‘got it wrong’ on recruitment ban

HAVING spent time in the Mid-Western Regional Hospital recently, including 24 hours in A&E, and having experienced first hand the atrocious conditions in which nurses and staff are forced to work, I wish to say that I fully support them in their efforts to have the recruitment embargo rescinded and beds freed up.

The purpose of the recruitment ban, according to the HSE, is to save money. But anyone with even a scrap of common sense could see that this was not happening.

Effectively, all they were doing was robbing Peter to pay Paul, and HSE national director of human resources, Sean McGrath, has finally come out and admitted it. He told senior management recently that the HSE has “essentially swapped moratorium savings for agency workers”. The recruitment ban is not saving money, but it certainly is putting the health and safety of people at risk, including the health and safety of nurses and staff.