Hospital visits to remain restricted after flu outbreak
VISITING restrictions that have been imposed in West Kerry Community Hospital following an outbreak of flu’ are to remain in place for an undetermined period of time while the situation is kept ‘under constant review’ by the HSE.
The restrictions were put in place on May 2 and this week a HSE spokesperson said it was not yet possible to put a timeframe on when normal hospital access will be restored.
“Access will only be accepted for essential visiting, but we would appeal to people to refrain from visiting as this is an influenza outbreak,” the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, the HSE is continuing its efforts to recruit the extra staff needed before additional beds can be opened at the hospital. However, there are mixed views on how this is progressing.
Last September HIQA finally sanctioned the opening of eight additional beds at West Kerry Community Hospital but the expansion was stymied when the nurses’ INMO union insisted the hospital couldn’t have more patients without more nurses. A stalemate ensued until the HSE agreed in February to hire five additional nurses and since then efforts have been made to recruit the necessary staff.
This week the HSE’s spokesperson said that “recruitment is ongoing and is going well”. However, the nurses have not yet been appointed and, according to the INMO, finding suitable staff is going to be a serious problem.
INMO Industrial Relations Officer Michael Dineen said this week that the agreement reached in February between the HSE and INMO means no new beds can be opened until enough additional staff are in place to do 195 hours nursing work per week. This could be five nurses working a 39-hour week or a greater number of part time nurses.
“I understand they haven’t achieved that or anywhere near it,” he said. “They’ve got people who can work some hours but it falls far short of what is needed.”Asked why he thought Dingle hospital should have a problem recruiting nurses when graduate nurses are emigrating in search of work, Mr Dineen said, “it all comes down to terms and conditions”.
“Nurses can get vastly superior working conditions… and a much faster career progression path in the UK. They won’t go into the environment nurses are working in in Ireland, where there are chronic staff shortages because of the moratorium on recruitment that was introduced in 2009 and only lifted at the end of 2016,” he said.
Mr Dineen added that in West Kerry and other ‘remote’ areas it is much more difficult to recruit nurses than it is in cities, but even in Dublin and Cork hospitals are finding it difficult to hire nurses. He said the INMO has proposed that the HSE should pay a ‘Gaeltacht allowance’ to help make local hospitals a more attractive proposition to nurses but there’s no indication this suggest ion will be taken up any time soon.
A separate problem concerning the hospital also remains unresolved: although the HSE reached an agreement with the INMO on staffing and rosters there is still an issue involving members of the SIPTU trade union. The HSE said, “we are attempting to resolve this as a matter of urgency”.