Coronavirus: Lack of childcare for health workers creating staffing problems

Health workers have expressed dismay at the Government’s failure to act on its promise to provide childcare support for essential medical staff during the coronavirus crisis.

Forsa, the trade union representing over 30,000 hospital and community health workers, said the lack of progress on the issue six weeks after the closure of schools and crèches was creating additional staffing problems in the healthcare sector.

HSE chief executive, Paul Reid, revealed earlier this week that around 7,000 healthcare workers had indicated they needed some form of childcare support to allow them to continue working during the current Covid-19 pandemic.

Forsa said a meeting of senior HSE officials on Tuesday for the fifth week in a row had failed to agree measures to deal with the issue.

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The head of the union’s health and welfare division, Éamonn Donnelly, said there was growing evidence that the failure to act was forcing essential healthcare staff to stay at home to look after their children at a time when the virus was depleting the number of workers available for work in hospitals and other care settings.

Mr Donnelly said the problem was particularly acute for single parents and carers and families where both parents were employed in the health sector.

He said staffing pressures had worsened while zero progress on the provision of childcare was being made as significant numbers of healthcare workers had contracted the virus or had to self-isolate.

“Increasing numbers of health workers have been forced to take annual leave to cover gaps in their temporary childcare arrangements and a growing number are telling us that they simply have to prioritise their children in the absence of promised supports,” Mr Donnelly observed.

Forsa pointed out that over 2,500 health workers had contracted Covid-19 by last week.

While the union recognised there were public health challenges associated with the provision of childcare for health workers, it said they had been given reassurance by the Government when schools and crèches were closed on March 12th that supports would be put in place.

Speaking on Tuesday night, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar acknowledged the provision of childcare for healthcare staff was a problem that the Government wanted to resolve.

The main proposal is that qualified childcare workers will become childminders in the homes of healthcare staff but Mr Varadkar said the solution would require clearance from the National Public Health Emergency Team, which acts as the main advisory body for the Government on dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an interview on RTÉ’s Prime Time, Mr Varadkar said public health experts were concerned that the proposal would be “mixing households again” which could contribute to the spread of the corona virus.

Mr Varadkar said the government was awaiting a report from NPHET which he understood was being finalised on Tuesday.

“If they clear it, we will be able to do it in days or weeks. If they don’t, then we can’t unfortunately,” he said.

Another union representing healthcare workers, Siptu, said it was aware of staff taking annual leave and calling in sick in order to mind their children, while some grandparents, who should be ‘cocooning’, were looking after the children of healthcare staff as no alternatives were available.

The Minister for Children, Katherine Zappone, recently informed TDs that intensive work was being done to deliver “a safe and pragmatic solution that meets the needs of essential workers, is child centred, and protects any childcare practitioners who might volunteer.”