Social work, medical and other services provided by health boards and hospitals will be hit by the Government's decision to cut 800 approved posts in health boards and hospitals, according to health service unions.
The posts are among 6,000 new jobs which had been approved for filling in 2002. They are mainly, but not exclusively, in management and administration.
The Department of Health and Children said yesterday it "is currently in a process with the health boards to ensure that the posts which will not be filled will be those which will have a minimal impact on patient services. Priority will be given to the filling of those posts which are directly related to the delivery of services to patients."
But Mr Kevin Callinan, national secretary for health with the IMPACT trade union, said doctors, nurses, social workers, paramedics and other scarce professionals would now have to spend more time on clerical and administrative work.
Mr Callinan said the Government saw clerical, administrative and managerial staff as a soft target. Administrative staff made up around 15 per cent of all health workers, a figure that includes significant numbers of frontline carers like community welfare officers, childcare workers, and accident and emergency staff. "It also includes staff in crucial support services like admissions and appointments, medical records, IT, human resource management, and recruitment."
IMPACT would resist cuts in services and was seeking information about the criteria for the cuts. "I want to know whether the Department has made any assessment of the likely impact on services or if they have simply plucked a figure out of the air to please Charlie McCreevy," he said.
Dr Kate Ganter, president of the Irish Medical Organisation, said many consultants already find they have too little administrative back-up. "As a result, appointment letters and reports get delayed." There was a need for a strategic approach to deciding which posts would be filled and which would not. Areas such as accident and emergency, radiography and laboratories could not afford to lose approved posts.
The cuts would also impact on the expansion of out-patient clinics and surgery proposed in the National Health Strategy, she said.
The cuts "have set alarm bells ringing" among health workers, said Mr Paul Bell, secretary of the Dublin Health Services Branch of SIPTU.
The Department had not advised the health services on where exactly the cuts would come from. In the light of the increase in health service charges and the 18 per cent rise in VHI premiums, trade unions and patients needed to question the sincerity of the Government's commitment to the health services, he said.