The Health Service Executive’s failure to recruit all of this year’s radiography and radiation therapy graduates has left two key areas of the State’s cancer-care services short-staffed and struggling to address waiting lists, a Siptu conference has heard.
As a motion at the Galway conference calling for better resourcing of public healthcare workers and services was passed by delegates, those working in the sector said there had previously been a commitment that all of the graduate radiographers and radiation therapists, about 120 and 40 respectively, would be offered posts in the public health system. However, because of restrictions on hiring arising out of the HSE’s Pay and Numbers Strategy, this did not happen this year, adding to shortages in both areas.
“We don’t have enough staff,” said Michele Monahan, a senior radiographer and Siptu workplace representative in a big public hospital. “The pay and numbers has crucified us.”
Introduction of the strategy sought to freeze staffing levels in most areas on December 31st 2023, by “suppressing” posts that were vacant at the time.
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Ms Monahan said about a third of the newly qualified diagnostic radiographers did not have jobs by September and many will have been lost to the private sector or emigration. Debbie Kelleher, a radiation therapist, also working in a public hospital where she represents Siptu members, said barely a third were working for the HSE until recently.
“Out of the group that qualified this year - 30 radiation therapists - 10 got posts initially, 10 were on panels waiting, and 10 didn’t get jobs. But in the meantime, there are treatment machines that have been under-utilised or closed for cancer services.”
Both say all of the graduates could, and should, have been hired to address staff shortages. They claim the HSE’s decision not to is a false economy as its inability to fully utilise the diagnostic equipment it has invested in means a greater number of services being contracted out to the private sector.
Ms Monahan said the existing shortages contribute, in turn, to people leaving the system because of the pressure involved and lack of work-life balance. “They say they’ll go and find something else because of the burnout they are experiencing.”
Kevin Figgis, Siptu’s senior health sector official, said the problem is rooted in the introduction of the strategy.
The HSE insists the move was required as part of an attempt to regularise its budget for staff, which was repeatedly being exceeded.
It said it has continued to hire substantial numbers of staff in key areas, but talks continue between the two sides at the Workplace Relations Commission, with the next meeting due next week, as the wider group of unions argues there are 6,000 unfilled vacancies across the public health sector.
