CUH call for independent assessor to examine staffing issues
Vivienne Clarke
Vascular surgeon Greg Fulton, who is Chair of the Cork University Hospital (CUH) Consultant Staff Committee, has explained why the committee has written to the HSE calling for an independent assessor to examine staffing issues at the hospital.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Today with David McCullagh show that the reason for the request was because of the difference of opinion between the CUH management and staff and that of the HSE Central.
There was “quite a wide discrepancy” in those opinions, he said and there was a number of reasons why that might be the case.
Posts that had been initially attached to CUH, some of them have moved out to other hospitals, but were still being counted in the CUH total.
“Some of them have gone to the community; they're still being counted. Some are attached to UCC; they're still being counted. So we're not really sure, we just want that properly assessed.”
Essentially, the committee wanted an independent assessor to come in and determine exactly how many people were working in CUH and how many should be working in CUH.
“We're really quite short on staff at the minute.”
Staff at CUH were working “extremely hard” to keep CUH as safe as possible, he added, but the committee was concerned that shortages were going to be exacerbated going into the winter months and higher demands.
“In fairness, really the Minister, rather than sort of taking a crack at our CEO, who's been outstanding since she's been in position, all she (the Minister) simply has to do is get in the car and come to Cork, talk to us and talk to the staff and we'd be able to explain what her problems are.”
Fulton acknowledged that hospitals have to live within their budget, but the problem was that medical expenditure increased every year.
“There's more patients, the patients are older, the work is more complex.
“Our staff are outstanding. Our triage rate of 16 minutes is as good as anything in the country. Our discharge rate, we've increased it by 20 per cent. And in fact, currently, our percentage discharge compared to all other Category 4 hospitals is top of the league. So everybody's absolutely doing their best.”
The concerns of staff at CUH were not imagined, they were real, he said.
“This is not some kind of notional thing. This is not a bunch of doctors or administrators just basically giving out because they want more resources. This is a real problem.
“And whilst I think we're doing our very best to manage this at the minute, we are concerned about going forward and into the winter.
"I mean, just to give you an example, we have, I think we have about 40 new emergency medicine beds, 20 of which are currently up and running and 20 of which are due to open.
“The 20 beds that are open are essentially staffed with money that's been found down the back of the couch. And the 20 beds that are going to be opening, there's no staffing for them. We don't know if there's going to be staffing for them during the winter. It's only going to get worse. And this is why we're concerned.”
Fulton pointed out that CUH was losing a million euro a month in lost private income because of the absence of private patients.
“Obviously that's a political issue, but the government, when Sláintecare was coming in, the government basically told us until they were blue in the face that that money would be replaced. And it's not been forthcoming.”
