The Minister for Health has agreed to circumvent the moratorium on recruitment in order to avoid a looming crisis following a spate of retirements in the Orthopaedic Department at Merlin Park Hospital, that is according to Fine Gael TD Brian Walsh.
Deputy Walsh confirmed that the decision follows a meeting between Minister James Reilly and a number of orthopaedic consultants from the hospital last January, at which he was told that almost one third of the nursing staff from the department were set to retire in February. Deputy Walsh, who arranged the meeting, warned the minister that the exodus of nurses threatened to cripple the provision of orthopaedic services in the region unless retiring staff were replaced.
Five ward nurses and 2.5 whole-time equivalent (WTE ) theatre nurses retired from the Orthopaedic Department this year, leaving staff numbers down by almost 50 per cent since the introduction of the recruitment ban in 2009.
“If this situation was to proceed unaddressed, we would now be facing the closure of one of the department’s two operating theatres and up to 13 of the beds in the existing 25-bed unit,” said Deputy Walsh. However, a high-level decision has been made to circumvent the recruitment moratorium and permit the replacement of nursing staff at the Orthopaedic Department following a request by Deputy Walsh. It was confirmed to him in response to a parliamentary question in the Dáil last week that vacancies arising from the retirements would now be filled with permanent replacements. In addition, nursing staff have agreed to work additional paid hours; and staff currently on reduced hours have agreed to increase their hours permanently in order to bolster services at the hospital.
Deputy Walsh concluded: “Galway has been very fortunate to have arguably the best orthopaedic department in the country and an exceptional team of surgeons who have done tremendous work in developing the service in recent years. They were forewarned of this crisis well over a year ago and no measures were taken to avert what was a very dangerous situation. I am glad that steps have finally been taken to ensure the continuity of services and I thank the minister for his intervention.”
