Senator Gerard Craughwell - speech from 7 Oct 2020

Minister, you're welcome to the House and congratulations on your elevation. My colleagues Minister have already addressed the issue of critical care beds capacity, so I'll focus on some of the other risks that exist within the HSE. I will add at this point in time that hearing the Minister the other day on the radio talking about building bed capacity over the next two years doesn't really inspire one or give one confidence. And where we're going right now. And God help those who are sick with anything other than coronavirus if this thing continues to get out of control. Okay, the plan says a key underlying risk in implementing this winter plan is the significant risk of not being able to attract and retain the appropriate number and caliper of staff in the event of key posts of which there is a significant number required. These posts cannot be offered on a permanent basis. We attracted hundreds, if not thousands, of medical care workers back to this country to put on the green jersey for COVID-19 and then we offered them nothing. Some of them didn't even get offered jobs. Well, at the same time yesterday, I listened to the nursing director of a nursing home complaining that the HSE were stealing her staff. Both special care assistants and nurses. You can't do this. We have to treat the entire health care system as one unit. So the Achilles heel in the whole plan is this. Having identified the risk in the plan should then go on to state how to mitigate it against it. What plan is there to bring in these staff? These are highly qualified people. You can't offer them rubbish contracts. If you're going to bring them in, you've got to give them decent contracts. Funding and bed capacity, sorry, additional funding for bed capacity is all well and good, but my colleague Senator Hoy mentioned the INMO there in the last few minutes. The plan sets out a number of ambitious targets, but doesn't set out how many extra staff will be required or recruited to achieve this plan. An example, just five days ago, there were 80 vacant nursing posts in three main hospitals used to provide, sorry, used for people in Kildare. 25 of those posts were in NACE alone. 25 vacant posts. For months, the INMO have sought a funded workforce plan for the HSE. Where is that? It's not in the winter plan that I can see. I know that at the end of last month, this was forthcoming, but it has been referred to the Workplace Relations Committee. Have we got to actually go through a workplace relations dispute in order to solidify or create the jobs that are needed, create decent jobs for these people? I'd ask you, Minister, what steps have been taken by the HSE to provide clarity for the nursing unions? I fully support the proposal that those with high and moderate levels of frailty be cared for in their own homes. That's a welcome thing, so it is. The 4.7 million additional home support hours being provided in the plan is welcome. But again, this is an ambitious target. It's predicated on being able to recruit staff, which Family Careers Ireland estimate to be in the region of about 800. So we've got to find 800 support staff for care in the home. I know that force of the union are meeting the HSE today and SIPTU have already raised the issue, but it's frighteningly late in the day for the HSE to be discussing this particular, when we know that healthcare workers have been severely and disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Again, the nursing home lady that was on the radio yesterday afternoon, she's a director of nursing in one nursing home and because one of her close neighbours had staff with COVID-19, both care assistants and nurses, she actually went over and volunteered in that nursing home. So caring staff moving from house to house is going to be a problem. Family Careers Ireland have concerns about additional pressures on its members over vital support such as daycare, PPE, transport, essential therapies. And I could go on and on and on here, Minister. I'm running out of time like most other people, but I think your plan, Minister, and I do appreciate where we are with it, but I do think, like everything else with COVID-19, the chickens have come home to roost. It's underinvestment for years, and this is not your fault, it's successive governments, underinvestment for years have left us in a situation where we're facing into a winter and God knows what's coming down the line if we don't get public buy-in on the measures being taken by government. I just read today, five hours of a tailback for a nurse to get into Dublin today because of the roadblock Senator Macdull referred to earlier on. Five hours to get into Dublin. That's simply not good enough. Go raibh míle maith agar, sorry.