AFTER NEWS that the Central Mental Hospital might have to stop admissions because of shortage of staff it has been learned that, in spite of the public service recruitment ban, the Government has given special approval for the filling of up to 400 cancer posts.
The Department of Health confirmed yesterday that the posts had been exempted by the Department of Finance from the scope of the Government’s controversial moratorium on recruitment.
The move is aimed at facilitating the development of new radiation oncology networks. The posts concerned are radiation therapists, physicists, dosimetrists and clinical engineers.
The Health Service Executive said yesterday it was a matter for the Department of Finance to decide if the Central Mental Hospital (CMH) should be given a derogation from the recruitment embargo.
The HSE comment came a day after the hospital revealed it would have to stop taking admissions from June 15th as it was short 25 nurses.
The Department of Finance was not commenting on the situation yesterday but The Irish Times understands it has yet to receive a request from the HSE to allow the CMH employ extra staff.
Informed sources at the Department of Finance said that until it received a submission from the HSE making a case for the hospital to be allowed recruit extra staff there was nothing it could do.
The Department of Finance has already given approval for lifeguards to be employed on beaches for summer.
The Department of Finance’s decision to sanction the new cancer posts came on foot of a business case drawn up by the HSE.
Earlier this week Siptu warned that the moratorium on recruitment threatened the future of cancer services at St Luke’s Hospital in Dublin. It said there were 26 radiation therapists at the hospital who were unclear of their future. Siptu’s national nursing official Louise O’Reilly yesterday urged the HSE’s chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm to intervene in the dispute over CMH staffing.
She said the decision to close the hospital to admissions had serious implications extending far beyond the hospital itself. It would not be able to fulfil its obligations under the Mental Health Act, or the Criminal Law Insanity Act. “This, in turn, will leave the HSE open to legal challenges,” she said.
The HSE said it was continuing “to work with the Department of Health and the Department of Finance to implement the moratorium without impacting on the continuum of care to patients”.
It also said management of the CMH had made a submission to it last Friday setting out the position and this was under consideration. But correspondence from the hospital to Siptu indicated the hospital had drawn the attention of the HSE to its staffing problem several times previously to no avail.
John Saunders, chair of the Irish Mental Health Coalition, said he empathised with the situation facing the hospital and said the HSE had to make a strong case to the Department of Finance so the vacant posts could be filled.