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HEALTHCARE WORKERS UNABLE to find childcare will be able to remain at home to mind their children while being paid, unions have been told today.
Healthcare workers on the frontline have faced difficulty in securing childcare during the Covid-19 outbreak, as restrictions in place have meant that creches across the country have closed.
Unions have been calling on the government and HSE to provide concrete solutions that will address this issue.
In a teleconference today, it’s understood the HSE offered a proposal to unions that in cases where healthcare workers were unable to find childcare, they would be able to stay at home while still receiving their salary.
Unions had labelled previous government proposals to support healthcare workers with childcare provision as inadequate.
Last week, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said that previous proposals put forward by the government “actively discriminates” against single parents and will not help the vast majority of nurses.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had revealed a plan the day before to give paid leave to the partners of healthcare workers if their partners work in the public sector – but not in the health sector.
The INMO levelled strong criticism at the proposal, pointing out that many nurses and midwives are lone parents, have partners who are also working on the frontline or do not have partners who are in the public sector.
INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha, described it as a “surprisingly old-fashioned concept of family needs”.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie this evening, the HSE said: “The HSE’s position remains that it intends to work collaboratively with staff, to be as flexible as possible to ensure that issues relating to supporting child care arrangements are balanced with our responsibilities to provide critical health services during this pandemic. Our overriding goal is to ensure flexibility and creativity in working with staff and managers in this regard.”
In revised guidance on working arrangements for healthcare workers today, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform said “flexible working arrangements” would be offered.
It said: “In circumstances where one parent/guardian/partner is an essential healthcare worker, the other parent/guardian/partner will be supported by their public sector employer to remain at home to care for the child(ren) so as to ensure that the essential healthcare worker is able to go to work.
In the first instance, flexible working arrangements will be put in place for the other parent/ guardian/partner such as working from home or working adjusted hours/ shifts. Though not anticipated, in the event that flexible arrangements do not allow the essential healthcare worker to attend work it will be dealt with on a case by case basis.
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This is insane
@Jesus Christ: Read the article with the comments disabled. That’s insane.
@Jesus Christ: what’s insane about getting paid by the taxpayer while binging on Netflix while the kids playing video games?
Please explain… Jesus
There are plenty of childcare workers out of work.
@Siobhan Rosemary: Have they been tested?
@Siobhan Rosemary: and the problem is even at the best of times creches are germ fests.
I do feel sorry for child care workers though, the majority working for private creches get screwed money wise.
It’s an awful thankless industry that really needs a massive overhaul and needs to be taken over by the department of education
@Siobhan Rosemary:
Most are getting €350 to stay at home. How much would you need to pay them to do 39hrs cold minding in the home of maybe a frontline worker increasing chances of exposure??
@Barry: The government got to heavy on child care years ago when they got into bed with insurance companies & this pushed loads of small crèches out of business. My sister used to look after around 3/4 children & had it set up extremely well, with a big back garden swings & a slide & the kids loved her & they loved her back. The government brought in new rules that destroyed & put an end to it, & now everyone suffers!
@Colette Kearns: Totally agree. Those places were invaluable. I have a 3 year old myself and I was asking someone the other day why they weren’t around anymore.
@Brian Moore: so government needs to expand to fix a problem that govt caused?
@Siobhan Rosemary: They’re out of work for a good reason. How would you social distance in a creche or school?
Firstly before I go into my rant… nurses in this country do an unbelievable job and this is no way aimed at them but this is an outrageous decision… my partner and I have a daughter with a disability and she works in a pharmacy while I work in a petrol station/ shop and we are working 7 days per week so one of us has to be at home with my lil girl everyday… we are potentially exposing her every day to the virus as one of us are working everyday so we scrub ourselves clean etc to try our best to avoid infecting her but if we decide that it’s too much of a risk we can’t decide to just stay at home and get full pay! We will get absolutely nothing!!!! We have to work to pay the bill’s and the government writing a blank cheque to the public service is morally wrong at this time!
@Jeffrey Corrigan: The public sector has become an anchor. If it isn’t reformed, we’re going no where.
@Jeffrey Corrigan: once again one rule for the public sector and another for every other front line private worker.
My god. We’ll be left with no health care workers. Surely opposite shifts, annual leave where it helps. That’s what a lot of people are having to do.
More cushy deals for parents. While people who don’t have the children excuse die for Ireland.
@Never Reply: Bad troll or good moron.
@Never Reply: cushy deals for parents. Get out u idiot
@Louis Jacob: zip it little man.
@Never Reply: hahahahahahaha. What a twit!
@Louis Jacob: what a Kant.
@Never Reply: Alright Ken M. You win.
@Louis Jacob: Marvellous counter arguments there.
@Never Reply: I wouldnt be in your league.
@Louis Jacob: True ignoring these point is better in this instance.
@Never Reply: ???
@SteveÓ: Skum.
I’d prefer to be at work, of some use.
“If partner works in public sector they will be paid to stay at home”. What total nonsense.
If the partner works in the private sector you can f-off.
Sher ya may as well be doing the hokey pokey at home with your kids and money for nothin as do it work .
Seems like a reasonable outcome to the dilemma. Should work fine as long as there are sufficient health care workers who are able to work. I am sure most front line staff want to do work in this crisis but their children have to get priority.
Proper order. What else can they do?
@Louis Jacob: Do what the rest of us have to do, use holiday days or take a pay cut.
@EvieXVI: how many holidays do you get.. Can we swap jobs
@Ali Ní Dhomhnaill: I can 22 days, anything more than that, I simply don’t get paid.
@EvieXVI: All your holidays are used up so I suppose.
@Louis Jacob: yes, they are. And no support payments either.
@EvieXVI: there is a border head south and join the Euros where success rate dealing with Coronavirus is far superior to the rapidly shrinking empire you choose to reside in
@Anthony Doyle: Where the HSE is? Where I live and work? Idiot.
@Louis Jacob: claim the covid payment and not get paid in full for a job theyre not doing?
It was inevitable to surface at some point – Unions and the heroes looking to milk every opportunity to squeeze out more – never ones to waste a good crisis.
I am a childcare worker. I’m not “sitting at home doing nothing “. Most of us are using this time to up-skill. I would prefer to be back at work doing my job.
If I was to go into a private house and look after children for a person working in a hospital situation there’s a greater chance of me infecting that household or vice-versus. You have to think of the possible knock on effect of that and the implications that could have on our hospitals and our own homes.
Im sure we wont get a single healthcare worker milking that set up
Difficult choice – go through labour and childbirth and all the sleepless nights, only to have other people bitching that you don’t have it tough enough for their liking.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: Nobody should be on indefinite leave with full pay. Children or not. That is what i would call having your cake and eating it. And having children IS just that; a choice.
Didn’t take long for health care workers to go from hero to zero in the publics minds. How quickly will the calls for their pay to be cut begin when it all settles down. If other workers were in unions instead of non union labour work places perhaps their pay and conditions might improve until this happens why moan about those who’s unions gained good conditions for their members. People working from home doing more than 40% extra hours for employers who could choose not to re employ them. Smell the coffee. employers will never waste an opportunity to cut costs and exploit their workers
So private sector nursing homes are not included. What a surprise! There is a pattern emerging here.
What about workers in other businesses who have to stay at home to mind children and don’t get paid. Discrimination!!!
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