HSE can’t impose frontline testing

THE HSE has said that it can not legally force frontline healthcare workers to get Covid tests.

This is despite the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation warning that staffing numbers in Irish hospitals are in ‘freefall’ due to Covid-19 absences – plunging the health sector into crisis.

Speaking yesterday, HSE chief operations officer Anne O’Connor said around 3,500 acute hospital staff are out of work because they have tested positive or are close contacts.

‘That has very real implications,’ she told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny Show.

‘And that is a significant number when you look at the overall capacity in our hospital system.’

She added that, although she personally does not view it as acceptable for a healthcare worker to refuse a test, t he Government can’t legally force anyone to take one. ‘We don’t have any legal basis f or making it mandatory,’ she said. ‘The only legal basis for anything with infectious diseases relates to public health – but testing is not mandatory, either in the public system or the private system.’ She added: ‘We have seen a very good uptake in general. We know that in some nursing homes – particularly as time has gone on – people have been less keen, but we equally have nursing homes that are around 100%. ‘So, we continue to try and encourage people to take up testing and will continue to work with Nursing Homes Ireland to promote that as well.’ However, she stressed that, overall, they had not had an issue, saying: ‘In terms of frontline workers, we have not had a problem. People are getting tested a nd t hey are getting vaccinated.’

Concern: Anne O’Connor, HSE COO