'Nonsense' that there are 'too many chiefs' in the HSE
A breakdown in staff numbers by category proved it was ‘nonsense’ to blame too many administrators as the reason for a shortage of medical staff in health services.
That was the claim of Independent Councillor Declan McDonnell, who had requested the Health Service Executive (HSE) provide a detailed breakdown on staff numbers for Galway University Hospitals and the Saolta University Hospital Care Group at this month’s Regional Health Forum West meeting.
This revealed that, in April, there were 4,075 people working in the two city hospitals. Of these 587 people engaged in management and administration, with a further 289 employed for general support.
There were 769 staff categorised as medical or dental and a further 1,560 nurses and midwives on the payroll.
In addition, there were 565 health and social care professionals employed and 305 people providing patient and client care.
There were 925 people employed in Portiuncula Hospital – 132 managers or administrators and 81 in general support. This compares with 158 engaged in medical or dental work, 376 nurses and midwives and 93 health and social professionals, 85 in patient and client care.
Cllr McDonnell, who represents the Galway City East Ward, told the meeting that in the eyes of the general public there were too many people engaged in administration and two few medical staff.
“We have this perception we haven’t enough doctors, we haven’t enough nurses. People are saying there’s too much [sic] administrators,” he said.
“But there is no area 20 per cent above another…we should stop this nonsense going on. It’s not that we’re not short of doctors and nurses but not because they are working elsewhere.”
CEO of Saolta Tony Canavan said he did not ‘for one minute consider our arrangement perfect’.
“We do need more clinical staff and we probably need more administration staff. We have had greater investment in staff and significantly more in community staff…we need more clinical staff for sure but not because we have too many in administration.”
(Photo: Saolta Hospital Group CEO Tony Canavan)