ABSENTEEISM IN the country's largest hospitals is running at 5 per cent on average, according to a new report drawn up by the Health Service Executive (HSE).
However, the report reveals that in some sections of individual hospitals the absenteeism figures are far higher. HSE management has told staff that it wants to eliminate what it described as double-digit absenteeism and inappropriately high sickness levels among staff.
For some months HSE management has been auditing absenteeism levels as part of a new pilot project to measure activity in hospitals across a number of areas.
The unpublished figures from last October show that in the main teaching hospitals the overall percentage of staff hours lost to absenteeism stood at 5 per cent.
Among individual hospitals the overall absenteeism level stood at 5 per cent in the Mater and St Vincent's hospitals in Dublin and at Cork University Hospital.
In St James's Hospital in Dublin the percentage of staff hours lost due to absenteeism was recorded at 4 per cent.
In the Midwest Regional Hospital in Limerick the overall average absenteeism level was 5.5 per cent.
However, among general support staff in the hospital the overall percentage of staff hours lost due to absenteeism ran at 12 per cent.
In general hospitals around the country the absenteeism levels, at 6 per cent on average, were higher than in the main teaching centres.
At the midland regional hospital in Portlaoise the overall percentage of staff hours lost as a result of absenteeism stood at 6.5 per cent.
A similar absenteeism level was recorded by the HSE at Kerry General Hospital in Tralee.
According to the HSE report at Sligo General Hospital the overall percentage of staff hours lost as a result of absenteeism stood at 6 per cent while the rate was 5.5 per cent at St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny and at Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe, Co Galway.
In a memo to the organisation's 110,000 staff last month the HSE's national director of human resources, Seán McGrath, identified the elimination of "double-digit absenteeism or inappropriately high sickness levels where they occur" as some of the practical measures it needed to take next year.
The full statistical report is expected to be published by the HSE in the spring.