New boss for the HSE

Purple said:
The HSE suffers from a lack of clear goals and strategy
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The HSE is coming down with goals, mission statements, strategies and slogans of every type.

It suffers from a lack of management. It needs competent management with full support.

Support from politicians, support from staff and unions and with adequate legal and regulatory authority to manage.
 
I agree. An organisation, of any size, should only have one mission statement or set of goals. It should be no more than a paragraph. It should be simple and clear and it should define the reason for the existence of the organisation. It should then be referenced during every decision making process. It should inform you when you are defining what "lack of management" means and what "Support from politicians, support from staff and unions and with adequate legal and regulatory authority to manage" means. In other words when you say it needs support from politicians, staff and unions it should make clear the nature of the required support and to what ends those involved are working towards.
Taking €300,000,000 out of the clinical budget of the HSE to fund pay increases should not be aligned to the overall goals of the organisation but retaining staff and keeping them happy should.
 
After the last fiasco, my grandson was scheduled for his urgent, life-improving, non-elective surgery in Crumlin next Monday. My daughter just got a phone-call cancelling the appointment. She and her husband are distraught as am I and the rest of the family, and I for one am very, very angry. I've just got off the phone so I'm venting here guys so maybe cut me a bit of slack (again!).

The problem is not the procedure itself, it is the after-care on the ward, which may run into the next unnecessary and ignoble strike action by members of a greedy, so-called caring profession. While their money-fuelled actions continue, even at the current published level, my grandson's vital surgery will be delayed indefinitely.

Will he die without it? It will shorten his life and condemn him to repeated bouts of unnecessary suffering, illness and hospitalisation, diminishing his quality of life for as long as he survives.

Will the surgery save his life? Probably not and there are risks, but his parents have taken the best professional, medical advice available and we have collectively our own unfortunate experience to draw on here with his late older brother and my late son.

This then is how we treat those most vulnerable citizens in modern Ireland; their needs, their very lives are superceded by that greatest of all evils, the love of money. To quote the great Mahatma Gandhi "The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members."

HSE, Dept of Health, nurses and nursing union, bow your heads in abject shame, you have failed this simple test.
 
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That’s disgraceful mathepac. What’s worse is I am not in the least bit surprised and don’t for a minute expect any better from nurses.
Can we please stop the nonsense talk about “front line staff” as if they are less greedy, more caring, more dedicated or more ethical than anyone else. Nursing, teaching, Gardai etc. It’s just a job, not a vocation. All they really care about is money and the people on the other side be damned.
 
The nurses undoubtedly feel they have a case as shown by the huge support for industrial action and indeed many media commentators feel the same , it is equally encouraging that all polls reflect the fact that they have huge public support and all the political parties bar FG are supportive.
Thankfully I’ve no relations or friends in need of surgery or other medical help but if I did I’d place the blame where it belongs - with the Government.
Stick with it - the Government will compromise
 
I don't want the government to compromise, I want my grandson to have his surgery NOW, I want the nurses back at work NOW. The nurses have taken and agreed to the pay-awards made to other public-servants in 2018 and scheduled for 2019, all nicely documented elsewhere in AAM; these action by them are just naked greed. Listen to their mouth-pieces, "Nurses' pay first, nurses' conditions second, oh and patient services, health and safety a very poor 3rd". Those are their prioities as articulated on news bulletins and print media repeatedly. Will paying them more improve the services they doled out to my sister as documented earlier by me in this thread? I don't believe so. Nurses are not poor nor are they poorly paid. If my sister needs to hospitalised again, which hopefully she won't, I guarantee she'd still have to listen to the idle, underemployed, well paid nurses, gossip about their excessive drinking, sex lives and their whinges about the costs of foreign holidays and car insurance. If that's their focus while at *work*, we have too many of them, as documented in the mid 2018 report I quoted from earlier and we pay them too much.

Please don't try defending the indefensible as this will just prove to be yet another victory for PR over fact.
 
No, I can quote facts and figures to back up my position as well as detail the sort of treatment meted out to close family members in the recent past. Facts, figures and detailed experiences in support of your position and less of the trite commentary please, my family members' health is in the hands of a yet another group greedy, money-grubbing, well-paid, self-serving public "servants".

Their colleagues the Guards have hit the headlines again in today's Sunday Times. EU police training money has allegedly been found resting in private Garda bank accounts. Page 6 News for anyone interested or surprised. The game-keepers are now poaching more than the poachers they are meant to launch prosecutions against, while the nurses, the HSE, the Minister and Dept of Health are causing more pain, suffering, stress and anguish than they are alleviating. Profit before people and their safety, health and well-being.

Viva La Quinta Brigada to be sung at all future Dail sessions.
 
The Irish Times published an interesting article making the argument that nursing numbers are skewed and they mask staff shortages.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/...and-mask-real-shortage-in-hospitals-1.3775004

Equally a Journal.ie published a factcheck asking the question: Are Irish nurses among the best paid in the World ?

The was rated UNPROVEN basically because the OECD admit that the data on nurse’s remuneration which is frequently used as an indication of where Irish nurses fall on the scale is not a reliable source .

Apparently some countries include a large number of non professional lower paid workers , the system does not include different overtime rate systems and specific allowances that exist in in each healthcare system.

Neither does it reflect the fact that Irish nurses work longer hours than nurses in countries such as the U.K. , US , Canada and Australia.

The article also points out that the Department of Health has not claimed that Irish nurses and midwives are amongst the best paid in the World.

The entire article can be read by googling Journal.ie factcheck nurses.

The fact that both the Government as employers and the employees acknowledge the fact that there is a shortage of nurses , consultants and GPS emphasises the reasoning that better salaries and working conditions are indeed available abroad and as such there is a need to increase wages and improve conditions in an effort to recruit the required staff here.

On the basis of anecdotal evidence I note that Irish nurses in Australia and Abu Dhabi are stating that they are earning double what they earn in Ireland !
I stand by my assertion that you are blaming the wrong people.

Better the La Quinta Brigada than Franco’s fascists
 
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I have referred to publications with far more credibility than either of those you refer to because they quote number - WTEs, populations, ratios, percentages. The journal.ie struggles with basic English a lot of the time, never mind statistics and I have no interest in viewing anything they have to say on this matter or most others because their literacy and grammar is below par.

The source for my facts in turn quotes its sources and yes it's a concern that HIQA is taking a census of HSE staff to try to establish how many staff they have employed at what grades. There are three unions that represent nurses and there is one board where all nurses must be registered and a limited number of employers for nurses why the numbers seem to be such a big mystery is beyond me.

I have only ever heard that we have too few doctors, never that we have too few nurses in employment. The seasonal nursing shortages causing the massive budget over-runs as reported, are caused by a combination of factors, including the appalling absenteeism of nursing grades. In 2018 at 4.8%, this was exactly four times the absenteeism rate for medical and dental staff in the HSE. It was the 3rd highest in percentage terms of any staff group in the HSE and was consistently between 4.7% and 5% for the three year period 2016-2018. Given that nurses account for more than one-third of all HSE staff, that is an enormous cost and a huge number of people missing from work at the same time on a regular basis. The nurses' union of course commissioned a defensive report to justify their repeated absences from work in droves.

Whatever about the WTEs employed or actually at work on any given day, nurses are under-employed as my sister's experiences during her hospitalisation prove. She is not a woman prone to exaggeration and is both calm and tolerant. For her to "come out swinging like a bar-room brawler" about the treatment she experienced and what she witnessed others subjected to by nurses shocked me.

If as you claim nursing figures in other jurisdictions include non-nursing staff, that would tend to inflate the ratio of nurses/doctors, nurses/1,000 of population in those jurisdictions, yet our corresponding ratios are higher, surely proof positive we have too many nurses. Maybe, just maybe those nurses who do show up for work are in the wrong places, thereby creating yet more artificial nursing shortages. Remember that nurses manage nurses and maybe we have too many nurse managers, directors of nursing etc. Too many chiefs and not enough indians. And above all else, remember that this is the HSE we are discussing here where just about anything can happen and probably has. PPARS anyone?

In one place where I worked on multi-disciplinary mental health team, we had a very senior nurse who prepared breakfast for staff members and any patients who happened to be around. I’m not sure what other work this individual did. We were inevitably joined most mornings by more senior nurses who claimed to be doing their "managing by walking around" thing, eating free food and sitting on their arses for half the morning. We only ever saw them at meal-times; co-incidence of course.

I remember being at a multi-disciplinary team meeting in another place where one of the counsellors raised the issue of alcohol being served to chemically dependent clients at a Christmas party. The nurses involved were highly indignant stating that a few bottles of stout and a glass of whiskey at Christmas never did anyone any harm, and it would be better for all concerned if the complainer helped serve at the party rather than whinge afterwards. There were consequences, serious consequences for one of the drinkers but of course the resultant inquiry went nowhere. "Nothing to see here folks, go about your business and leave us nurses to ours". Some of what I witnessed was beyond belief. And yes folks, guilty as charged, I am a former HSE employee.
 
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Deiseblue said:
Better the La Quinta Brigada than Franco’s fascists
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Sorry my reference to the Fifth International Brigade seems to have passed you by. They of course opposed the Blueshirts who "sailed beneath the swastika to Spain", our homegrown Fascist supporters, political fore-fathers of Leo & Co.
 
mathepac, there are some posters who will blindly support any strike and any pay claim because of their extreme socialist ideology. Talking to them is akin to discussing science with a creationist. Don't waste your time; you will just end up frustrated by their illogical moral certainties.
 
Unfortunately none of the publications you referred to address the reasons behind the current industrial dispute.

Namely the number of nurses currently employed as whole time equivalents ( WTEs ) in the HSE and :
The Question of nurse’ Salaries.

I at least attempted to do so by referencing the Irish Times article which states and I quote “ Last year the HSE said it employed 37,525 nursing WTE.As there are 4.7 million people in Ireland , that comes in at about eight nurses per thousand . But hold on a minute : that’s actually below the EU average . “

That ties in neatly with the widely accepted view by both the nurses , their Unions and the Government that our hospitals are understaffed and given the huge public support that seems to resonate with them as well.


You are more than entitled to disparage the Journal’s factcheck exercise and rely on anecdotal reports but what is undoubtedly correct is that Irish nurses work longer hours than nurses in other countries including those countries which have employed a huge number of Irish nurses.

As also reported the Department of Health have stated that their salaries are competitive but they’re obviously not as nurses flock abroad and quite obviously are enjoying better net salaries and terms and conditions.

That situation is not going to change until such time as salaries are increased increasing the possibility of recruiting much needed additional nurses thus improving services and conditions.

I sense a weakening in the Government resolve which hopefully will lead to a compromise.
 
Ireland should need less nurses than EU average given we have younger than average age profile.
Plus Ireland has a relatively large private medical sector. Are those nurses part of the stats?
HSE should have much less nurses per head than EU average.
 
I wouldn’t be a nurse for any amount of money and I feel their working conditions are dreadful but I don’t agree with the current strike. I understand their unions signed up to the current pay deal for public servants and that should not be broken. If the deadlock can be resolved by hiring more nurses or improved working conditions that’s fine but the pay element has to stand. I also think there should be some sanctions for the unions involved - when you sign up to something you should stick to it.
 
I agree with most of that but the "I wouldn't be a X for any money" argument is bogus.
I wouldn't clean out septic tanks for a living but I don't think that should for the basis for a pay rise for the people who do do it.
 
Typical misuse of statistics from the Irish Times. They know well that there are a great many nurses in the private system but they choose to misrepresent the facts in order to support their socailist, populist agenda.
 
The current industrial dispute is a result of the ballot on the Government’s pay proposals to solve staffing shortages.
This ballot returned a huge mandate for industrial action.
This minority Government will not sanction monetary penalties on the nurses as they are only too aware that public sympathy lies with the nurses and the other political parties are supportive of the nurse’s case
 
4,000 extra nurses hired in the last few years so I'd wonder about the staff shortage.
How many more do we need and how much more pay (20% pay rise the current demand) to get to this world class health system nirvana that we're told is waiting if only more and more money is spent
 
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