THE TRADE union Siptu has said Minister for Health James Reilly needs to set out his plans for replacing the Health Service Executive
The union call came in the wake of Dr Reilly’s criticism that the health authority’s corporate structure was dysfunctional. Siptu also said the Minister should end the moratorium on recruitment in the health service.
On Sunday it emerged the HSE’s head of child and family services Gordon Jeyes had described the moratorium as “daft”.
He also said that the culture in the HSE was “appalling”, adding that a textbook could be written about the executive. “If it was possible to get it wrong, they got it wrong.”
Responding to Mr Jeyes’s comments, the Minister said the “large corporate structure” in the executive was dysfunctional, and had been so for some time.
Siptu health division organiser Paul Bell said the Government had made clear already that the executive would not exist after its first term in office had expired.
He said Dr Reilly needed to let the various stakeholders know of his plans for replacing the organisation.
He also welcomed the comments by Mr Jeyes that the staff moratorium was daft and was preventing the executive working efficiently as provider of childcare and other key services.
“Although Mr Jeyes was referring to childcare provision, and the specific difficulty he is experiencing in recruiting and deploying social workers in a staff category exempt from the recruitment ban, what has come to light is the impact of the staff moratorium on the ability of the HSE to fulfil its statutory obligations to the public,” said Mr Bell.
He added that what Siptu has always feared has been articulated by one of the most senior executives in the executive.
Up to now management had refused to accept that its maintenance of a blanket recruitment ban is not the way forward and should end.
“If the staff moratorium is daft for social workers . . . then Siptu believes it is equally daft for nurses, ambulance personnel and support staff . . . nor has the HSE ever publicly conceded that the financial benefits of maintaining this crude instrument on the basis of saving money is being eroded by a heavy reliance on agency staff and contractors in order to give the impression that the head count is being reduced.”
Mr Bell said Dr Reilly should personally intervene and evaluate how successful the staff moratorium had been.
