and Our Elected Representatives are so weak they are clueless

I’m a frontline HSE worker, my gross wage for 2011 was €27k, I’m sick and tired of hearing about how the Croke Park agreement should be torn up, we’re entitled to a reasonable wage and reasonable working conditions. Just because hundreds of thousands of others have lost their jobs that does not entitle anyone to blame any section of society, this whole Public vs Private divide achieves nothing.
My daughter had a bad infection recently, she was admitted to hospital for a day in the A&E Department and, as she’s a nurse, was sent home because there was no beds (she’ll understand) at one point she was dumped out of her bed into a chair for a while, it was only when she almost fainted that she was found a bed again. She now has to have nurses come out to our house and administer IV antibiotics for 1 day and if they don’t work go back to A&E again. Whats the chances of that?
Would you have confidence in system that does something like this? This is relatively minor and just the tip of the iceberg, our hospitals simply cannot cope. Its lunacy to suggest that a quarter of staff will go but nothing will be affected, if thats so they weren’t need in the first place, bloody sure services will be affected. If you’re in any doubt ask someone who actually works there, not a manager, or take a walk through any busy hospital ward and speak to any member of staff. We’ll tell you the truth.

@Brian Walsh

Ive not actually called for the scrapping off the Croke Park agreement. Quite the opposite. If you read my comment again you will see that ive said that it should be renegotiated to protect front line workers like yourself and many many others.

Cuts in the public sector wage bill is necessary, and the croke park agreement ties the hands of the government in how they approach the reduction in this bill. The Croke park agreement means that the only way the government can achieve the reduction in the wage bill is by not replacing staff that leave. This is clearly a crazy approach to adopt.

Clearly when any organisation is in trouble you will try and keep those that you need and make redundant those that are less necessary. Im not saying that this is a nice thing to do. Far Far from it. All of these people have families to feed and mortgages to pay like us all.

Do you not think that front line workers should be protected ahead of non critical workers ?

Brian Walsh @
I hope your daughter improves and has a speedy recovery. Frontline workers are the only ones to ask about the state of what is happening .

@Eileen
I hope your daughter improves and has a speedy recovery

Absolutely. Best wishes to her Brian. Sounds like she had a terrible experience.

@Kirk I can see your point, but how do you define a frontline worker, and who does the defining? If all frontline workers were to be protected you can be damn sure every secretary in the HSE would define their job as a frontline worker, not that I have anything against secretaries. But if the axe were to fall on secretaries for example then who would do their job? When all these other jobs deemed non essential are cut back it has a knock on affect on everyone as someone has to take up the slack, and as we now see it becomes almost laughable when 25% of all jobs in one area can be slashed but some “suit” can still keep a straight face and say this won’t affect any services. It’s a bit like saying “yeah normally cars have 4 wheels but, well with cutbacks and all this one only has 3 wheels but you won’t notice any difference at all… would I lie to you”?

@Brian

Oh I agree, it wouldnt be an easy process to identify non critical personnel.

Again, in all of this talk of numbers reductions, its necessary to remember that there are real people and their families affected by any compulsory redundancies.

What i wold be afraid of happening is HIQA wll then come long and say close these as it is unsafe using the excuse of not enough staff JE@U@ this government really are clueless they have no idea what they are at

Ailis
I think we have passed the line !

and only gave us 2 weeks notice and James Reilly or Enda Kenny never even had the B@L@S to come and explain why to the people of Roscommon why we have been given the DEATH SENTENCE and they also gave out false statistics on figures too anything to cover their A@@E@ so they will not be seen o do a uturn
BUT WE HAVE NOT GONE AWAY we will be forever be the thorn in their sides no matter how long it takes we will see our A +E open again
so the best of luck in Cavan and Monaghan

but why are there agency staff wh do they not work for the HSE there should be no agency staff at all they cost more and then they do not have the same rights as the HSE God we have become a great country Good Grif if my father were alive to see this he would surely be kicking some asses into shape

Bernadette, I am a nurse and I agree with your point overall. However, you are wrong in saying that agency staff cost more. They do not. They are a much cheaper form of labour as the employer does not have to pay pension contributions (which employees also contribute to, for all the public sector haters), sick pay, maternity pay etc. Also, nurses are paid on an incremental scale which increases with years of experience. Agency pay is fixed at a particular point on this scale and does not increase with experience.

@ Sara Cahill thank you for correcting me there i appreciate what you are saying what i was trying to put across was why employ agency staff and not put them on the staff and give agency staff the rights that they would get if they were on the staff …. and I am saying this because i respect ALL frontline staff who else works weekends bank holidays public holidays Christmas new year 12hour shifts days nights and so forth and I wish you well Sara