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04/08/2010
Unions To Meet HSE Management Over Cuts
Unions representing health workers are to meet again with Health Service Executive management this afternoon to discuss the effect of cuts on services.
IMPACT, SIPTU and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) will attend the meeting, while the INMO said it wants a national summit to deal with what it has claimed is a public health crisis.
The union, which represents over 40,000 nurses and midwives, said over 1,500 hospital beds were closed while overcrowding continued in emergency departments and frontline nursing staff are not being replaced.
The talks adjourned in Galway yesterday evening with IMPACT officials saying they were disappointed by the lack of engagement shown by the HSE. They said that management seemed reluctant to disclose specific details on the extent of deficits and the nature of the proposed cuts.
They described management's attitude to major cuts to fixed-term workers' posts as "gung-ho", claiming there was no apparent reason for some of the posts the employers said must be cut.
IMPACT’s health national secretary Louise O’Donnell explained: “The HSE have acknowledged that services right across the region will be severely hit if these cuts are implemented.
"Their approach seems indiscriminate and ill-advised. We have adjourned now to consider what was discussed today. If there is any light at the end of this particular tunnel, it will be recognition of the cost saving approach provided for in the Public Service (Croke Park) Agreement. We have yet to see if that will be used as a guide by the HSE in this case.”
Ms O'Donnell added that union's would also be reconsidering the positions after the details of a confidential report by consultants Mott and MacDonald, commissioned by the HSE, had not been disclosed to health unions before the talks.
The report advised that up to 1,000 temporary employment contracts across the entire HSE West region could be cut in order to generate savings of €15-20 million over six months.
Ms O'Donnell said: "The existence of the Mott MacDonald report only came to light following media reports. The secrecy surrounding the report, and the scale of job and service losses it proposes, has provoked a wave of anger right across the region."
(DW)
IMPACT, SIPTU and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) will attend the meeting, while the INMO said it wants a national summit to deal with what it has claimed is a public health crisis.
The union, which represents over 40,000 nurses and midwives, said over 1,500 hospital beds were closed while overcrowding continued in emergency departments and frontline nursing staff are not being replaced.
The talks adjourned in Galway yesterday evening with IMPACT officials saying they were disappointed by the lack of engagement shown by the HSE. They said that management seemed reluctant to disclose specific details on the extent of deficits and the nature of the proposed cuts.
They described management's attitude to major cuts to fixed-term workers' posts as "gung-ho", claiming there was no apparent reason for some of the posts the employers said must be cut.
IMPACT’s health national secretary Louise O’Donnell explained: “The HSE have acknowledged that services right across the region will be severely hit if these cuts are implemented.
"Their approach seems indiscriminate and ill-advised. We have adjourned now to consider what was discussed today. If there is any light at the end of this particular tunnel, it will be recognition of the cost saving approach provided for in the Public Service (Croke Park) Agreement. We have yet to see if that will be used as a guide by the HSE in this case.”
Ms O'Donnell added that union's would also be reconsidering the positions after the details of a confidential report by consultants Mott and MacDonald, commissioned by the HSE, had not been disclosed to health unions before the talks.
The report advised that up to 1,000 temporary employment contracts across the entire HSE West region could be cut in order to generate savings of €15-20 million over six months.
Ms O'Donnell said: "The existence of the Mott MacDonald report only came to light following media reports. The secrecy surrounding the report, and the scale of job and service losses it proposes, has provoked a wave of anger right across the region."
(DW)
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