A NUMBER of health professionals working for the Health Service Executive who are being paid for doing nothing for years are on long-term leave pending the outcome of internal investigations, the HSE has confirmed.
It made the disclosure after information provided to Fine Gael’s health spokesman Dr James Reilly in response to a parliamentary question showed one health professional on leave since April 2003 has been paid €1.3 million to date and is still on the pay roll.
There are currently 147 health professionals on paid leave from the HSE for more than six months. Of these 127 are on long-term sick leave. The others are in dispute with the HSE on a range of issues.
One person on leave since October 1996 has been paid €299,770 while another person on leave since May 1997 has been paid €319,311. The total bill to date for the 147 staff on paid leave from the HSE comes to more than €11 million.
Asked how a person could be still on the payroll if they were out of work for years, the HSE last night said: “A number of employees are on leave pending the outcome of internal investigations under HSE disciplinary procedures or policies such as Trust in Care and Dignity at Work – programmes which deal with instances of allegations against staff members.”
It said it could not comment in relation to individual cases concerning such staff members.
In relation to the 127 health professionals on long-term leave, it said that after six months absence on sick leave, pay for staff was reduced to 50 per cent of normal salary, following which either no pay or a pension rate of pay applied.
Dr Reilly said a pay bill of €11,229,668 for employees on leave from the health service was astounding. “How is this remotely justifiable when a cervical cancer vaccination programme which would cost less than this amount has been cancelled for budgetary reasons?” he asked.
He claimed paying people for years for doing nothing amounted to mismanagement. Front-line services were first to be cut when money got tight rather than cutting out waste like this, he said.