Lifting of recruitment ban for nurses & midwives welcome
Labour Party Health spokesperson Alan Kelly TD, has welcomed news that the HSE recruitment ban has been lifted for nurses and midwives but has called for clarity on the status of the ban for other healthcare professionals.
Deputy Kelly said:
“I very much welcome the announcement from the General Secretary of the INMO, Phil Ní Sheaghdha, that the recruitment ban has been lifted on nursing and midwifery posts. Since I revealed that the HSE had a recruitment embargo in place in April 2019, I have been calling for this measure to be reversed.
“We now need clarity on whether the ban will be lifted for other healthcare professionals such as OTs, psychologists, and if promotions within frontline healthcare services will now be sanctioned.
“This recruitment ban has done so much damage to frontline health services. Nurses in overcrowded emergency departments have felt it the most. Hopefully the lifting of the recruitment ban will ease the staffing pressure in hospitals once more nurses and midwives are recruited.
“If this ban had been lifted sooner, or had not been introduced at all, we would have more nurses, which we know we badly need now.
“The ban has never made sense when you look at it in the context that the HSE have been spending on average €900,000 a day on healthcare staff.
“We must never find ourselves in a position again where the recruitment of essential frontline health staff is sacrificed to deal with cost overruns.”