HSE shells out €800,000 to re-employ retired staff

Health staff in the west who had retired from their jobs were re-hired again at a cost of more than €800,000 to the Health Service Executive (HSE) in 2014.

The total cost of re-employing retired hospital staff in the West of Ireland last year was some €829,719.

This figure, supplied at the HSE West Regional Health Forum meeting this week, is the amount that was paid in wages to the 37 retirees who were rehired last year.

The meeting heard that it does not include the cost of the lump sum redundancy payments they received when they retired, or the cumulative pension costs since they were re-employed.

The HSE confirmed that of the 37 retirees who were rehired, 14 were medical staff, ten were nurses, two were radiographers, two were home-helps, two were care assistants and six were in administration.

The information was supplied following queries from Galway City Councillor Pádraig Conneely (FG), who said the practice of rehiring retired staff should cease.

“When you’re gone you’re gone. It is not good practice that retired staff should come back again. They’re after getting big payouts from the public purse, big pensions and now they’re coming back for more.

They should be letting other people do the job. When you retire, you should be gone,” said Cllr Conneely.

He says that the ‘true’ cost of rehiring retired staff is more when pensions-payments are factored in. “It could be well over a million euros, plus lump sums,” he said.

Tony Canavan, chief operating officer of Saolta university health care group, said he would come back to the next meeting with the total cost, which includes the pensions’ breakdown.

He stressed, however, that retired staff are only rehired, “as a last resort where there was no other available option in order to ensure continued provision of a safe service.”

In relation to the six administrative posts, he said they were rehired to chair interview boards “where again there were no other available options”.