COVID-HIT NURSE RECALL

Concern at latest HSE protocol to isolating staff

AS THE death toll from Covid-19 in Ireland passed the 2,000 mark yesterday, shocking news emerged that nurses are being asked to return to work early from Covid self-isolation due to staff shortages.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said the demands are being made of isolating healthcare workers in nearly every hospital in the country.

Joe Hoolan, industrial relations officer with the INMO, told the Irish Daily Mail that it is national policy for the HSE to recall nurses – who are self-isolating but not showing symptoms – to work, and without testing to see if they are clear of the virus.

Mr Hoolan said there are ‘ huge concerns’ staff may be returning to work as asymptomatic carriers, and labelled the protocol ‘a joke’.

‘It is being used in almost every hospital in the country,’ he said. ‘Only Naas Hospital, which had a serious outbreak, has decided to let nurses remain in self-isolation for the required time.’

At Naas Hospital in Kildare, there are 87 staff members not in work due to contracting Covid-19 or having been a close contact to someone who has.

Mr Hoolan said the use of workers supposed to be self-isolating was a ‘vicious circle’ in which they can bring the virus into the hospitals and all the staff around them then have to go into self-isolation.

‘It is not a policy that is working and we must make sure staff are safe before they can return to work,’ he said.

Earlier he told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny that it is a ‘huge concern’ that staff are being told to return to work. He said: ‘So staff who might be told, “You’re a Covid positive contact, you now self-isolate,” those staff can be derogated by senior management to come back to work unless they show symptoms. We think that’s absolute madness – those staff should remain out of work.’

He said the practice was a ‘joke’, adding that those who are returning to work are not being tested for the virus but instead are having their temperatures monitored twice daily.

He showed the Mail the HSE’s document called ‘Derogation for the Return to Work of Healthcare Workers who are Essential for Critical Workers’.

It states that, while healthcare workers can be brought back if they are essential, ‘a detailed local risk assessment is to be undertaken in relation to the risk to patient safety due to absences of essential healthcare workers’.

This process ‘should include an assessment of available personnel who can be redeployed within the service’. It states that the recall of staff can only occur when ‘all efforts have been made to recruit alternative healthcare workers with the necessary skills’ and ‘despite these actions, an area cannot be staffed safely or a critical skill set to provide critical/essential services is unavailable’.

The INMO’s comments come as Ireland’s Covid- 19 death toll t opped 2, 000 yesterday and another 12 people with the virus died. A further 379 new Covid-19 cases were also confirmed. Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said: ‘Today we sadly report over 2,000 deaths associated with Covid-19 to date in this country.’

Self-isolation is having a major effect on hospital staffing across the country. This, in turn, is having a knock-on effect on wait times for non-Covid patients requiring treatments and procedures. The HSE told the Mail last night that ‘a derogation to remain in work was put in place’ following ‘a detailed local risk assessment regarding risk to patient safety’.

‘This derogation occurred if the healthcare worker is identified as essential to critical service needs. Additional monitoring, twice daily and various risk mitigation measures are in place to ensure the safety of patients and staff alike.

‘There is no evidence to link the derogation policy to outbreaks among healthcare workers.’