Workforce growth in Cork hospitals decreased by almost 80% last year, data shows

Workforce growth in Cork hospitals decreased by almost 80% last year, compared to during the previous one-year period, HSE data has shown.

From December 2023 to December 2024, the total staff headcount across Cork University Hospital (CUH), Mercy University Hospital (MUH), South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital, Mallow General Hospital, and Bantry General Hospital increased by just 135 — from 8,331 to 8,466.

Between December 2022 — when there were 7,667 staff — and December 2023, the increase was 664, a rise of 79.6% from the previous year.

2024 saw a recruitment embargo across the HSE but, interestingly, the Cork hospitals gained 115 staff while the embargo was in place and only 20 after it had been lifted.

Multiple hospitals saw their headcount increase in the first half of 2024, when the embargo was in place, but fall in the latter half of the year after the embargo was lifted and replaced with the “pay and numbers strategy”.

In Cork University Hospital, staff headcounts increased by 99 from 5,235 in December 2023 to 5,334 in June 2024. They then fell by 55 between June and December 2024.

A similar pattern was seen in Bantry, which ended the year with fewer staff than it had going into it, after gaining seven staff then losing 12.

Mallow had 22 more staff in the first six months of the year and only one additional staff member in the second half.

Mercy University Hospital also lost staff over the course of the year with its headcount decreasing by 59, then increasing by 44 — a net loss of 15 staff. South Infirmary Victoria University saw its headcount increase by 88 over the year, gaining 46 and 42 staff in the first and second half of the year respectively, meaning it was responsible for more than half of the Cork hospitals’ overall increase for 2024.

Contrary to the reduction in workforce growth, recent hospital activity reports — also published by the HSE — show increased levels of hospital activity in the delivery of scheduled and unscheduled care in 2024 compared to 2023.

The data comes amid a series of protests including at Cork University Hospital by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), Fórsa, and Siptu over staffing in healthcare settings and the pay and numbers strategy — which they have called “a recruitment embargo by another name”.

Both the INMO and Fórsa’s membership voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action at the end of last year, and the unions announced earlier this month they will be asking their executives to endorse a plan for industrial action in the coming weeks.

Social Democrats TD for Cork East Liam Quaide told The Echo: “These figures bear out what all the main trade unions have been saying for months — that the pay and numbers strategy is a continuation of the HSE recruitment embargo by another name.”

The Echo contacted South/South West Hospital Group, which manages the Cork hospitals, for comment.