NEW FIGURES show that the hospital with the worst absenteeism rate in the State is Ennis General Hospital.
According to the figures released yesterday by the Health Service Executive’s internal monitoring service, Healthstat, the absenteeism rate at Ennis was over 9 per cent.
The figures are for the month of May, confirming Ennis General Hospital had the worst absenteeism rate for the second month running in the Healthstat monitoring system.
The HSE has admitted that there is a “significant problem” with absenteeism at the Ennis hospital.
The figures show that there was an absenteeism rate of 20 per cent among Ennis hospital’s general support staff for the month of May. The statistics show that the absenteeism rates among the 100-strong nursing staff at Ennis topped 10 per cent in May.
The figures also show that almost half of the nurses off sick were on long-term sick leave.
Other hospitals to feature in the worst five in relation to absenteeism include the Midlands Regional Hospital at Portlaoise, Limerick Regional Hospital, Sligo hospital and Wexford hospital.
Member of the HSE West Forum, Cllr Brian Meaney (Green) said: “The absenteeism rates for Ennis remain high, but I know that the HSE is trying to get to grips with the situation.
“There is unfortunately a lot of nurses off on long-term illness at the hospital.”
The figures for Midlands Regional Hospital at Portlaoise show an overall absenteeism rate of about 7 per cent with “other patient and client care” recording an absenteeism rate of 12 per cent.
The disclosure of absenteeism rates at Ennis General comes as new figures show that growing absenteeism in the HSE this year is on course to cost the taxpayer €230 million.
According to the Minister for Health, James Reilly, an absenteeism rate of 4.9 per cent for 2011 cost the taxpayer €225 million and Dr Reilly confirmed that the rate of absenteeism in the HSE in 2012 was marginally higher at 5 per cent.
