MORE THAN 100 extra staff are to be recruited by the HSE to ensure the roll-out of the cervical cancer vaccination programme can continue as planned in second-level schools this term.
The agreement to recruit an additional 27 senior medical officers and 88 nurses for a 16-week period to deliver the vaccination programme was reached after 14 hours of talks at the Labour Relations Commission on Saturday morning.
It was also agreed that 49 administrative staff will be redeployed from their existing duties across the State to assist with the programme.
The last-minute talks were held after public health doctors and nurses voiced fears that other work, including childhood immunisations, would have to be neglected in order to deliver the State’s cervical cancer vaccination programme, which was due to commence in earnest in schools this week.
A copy of the agreement acknowledges staff representatives felt that even with the additional resources being provided by the HSE, these will not be sufficient to deliver the programme without impacting on existing services.
The vaccine, which is being offered to first-year students and those second years who didn’t get it last year, has to be given in three doses over a six-month period, with the second dose being given two months after the first and the third one given four months after that. The vaccine will be free of charge.
The HPV vaccination programme began in 21 schools before the summer break in a bid to fulfil a commitment given by Minister for Health Mary Harney that it would start prior to the holidays. However, the programme has yet to begin in earnest.
Phil Ní Sheaghdha, director of industrial relations with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, said recruitment of the additional nurse vaccinators would begin this week. Initially, the work will be offered to existing part-time nurses who will also be offered training.
The HSE said yesterday that notwithstanding the need to recruit and train some staff, the vaccination programme would begin in earnest this week and it planned to deliver all first doses of the vaccine in 575 second-level schools over the next four weeks.
“Parents will be sent information from the HSE in the coming days or weeks letting them know when their daughter’s vaccinations begin,” it said.
While some parents expected vaccinations to begin in schools in the Dún Laoghaire area of Dublin yesterday, the HSE said some provisional dates for vaccinations in that area had to be rescheduled this week “due to staffing arrangements”.
It said “all school visits will be rearranged as soon as possible during this four-week phase of the campaign, and parents will be notified of the new time and date shortly”.
The HPV vaccine, most effective when given before girls become sexually active, guards against the most common, but not all, strains of the HPV virus which causes cervical cancer. Regular cervical smear tests are also recommended.