HSE wields axe on jobs despite virus threat

Frontline workers have warned that an outbreak of Coronavirus in the West of Ireland could cripple Galway’s already fragile health system – as the HSE implements fresh cuts.

More than 150 primary care workers are being axed in Galway, Roscommon and Mayo, and ‘closure orders’ have been issued – effectively shutting down certain community health services – as the Health Service Executive attempts to rein-in spending.

The move to cut staff in community nursing, as well as social care professionals and physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, and audiologists, has been slammed by trade union officials as ‘unprecedented’, and ‘despicable’.

It comes at a time when the public is nervous and ‘hyper sensitive’ about the health system’s ability to cope with cases of the potentially deadly Covid-19 – University Hospital Galway’s overcrowded Emergency Department is already creaking at the seams, according to INMO Trolley Watch figures.

“Cuts in primary care will lead to more overcrowding in the A&E in Galway. There will be no services in the event of a Coronavirus outbreak. The services will not be there,” said Pádraig Mulligan, assistant general secretary of Fórsa trade union.

Local health managers are said to be ‘extremely concerned’ about the impending cuts being imposed by Department of Health officials and senior management of the HSE in Dublin, who want to plug a €9 million overspend.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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