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SIPTU health sector leader criticises approach of HSE and Fine Gael to cutbacks in health services

Date Released: 21 Apr 2009

The Health Service Executive approach to cuts is counter-productive and disappointing, SIPTU National Industrial Secretary Matt Merrigan told the SIPTU Nursing Conference in Sligo today. “Much of the rhetoric by right wing politicians such as Leo Varadkar of Fine Gael is simply aimed at making cheap points rather than addressing serious issues of reform”, Mr. Merrigan said.

“The reality is that much of our health service is already over-extended because of a deliberate policy of outsourcing over many years and filling front line activities such as nursing through agencies. It is of course a lot easier to reduce expenditure by cutting front line staff who do not have permanent employment contracts but the end result impacts directly on the patient.

“We are not afraid to engage with management to reform the health services and do so on a regular basis. The problem is that for critics such as Mr. Varaker, ‘reform’ is simply a code word for bashing public sector workers and trying to suggest that it we did not have so many of them all our economic problems will be solved.

“If he is not prepared to confront the much bigger problem of how to work with us on eradicating the waste created by a two tier health system and the cost to the Exchequer of tax breaks to developers to increase public dependence on private health care, then public sector workers are not going to give much credence to his remarks. His recipe will result in fewer nurses, fewer care assistants and other grades, resulting in more people on trolleys in A&Es and longer queues for basic elective procedures.”

Mr. Merrigan also criticised figures in a leaked HSE document suggesting that absenteeism is double the private sector average. “Quite apart from the fact that the figures only relate to January, when sickness rates are at an annual high, they ignore the fact that the personnel concerned are often working in highly infectious environments and undertaking shift work, including extended night shifts, which can seriously undermine the immune system.

“Of course critics never draw the other obvious conclusion that one reason why sick leave is so low in much of the private sector is that many workers are in non-unionised employments and do not actually have any sick leave, or have it on such circumscribed grounds that it is virtually non-existent. Like Mr Varadkar they would much prefer unions to disappear.”





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