Workers demonstrate outside Mayo University Hospital as services ‘falling to the ground’

A large crowd of healthcare workers and trade union representatives from Forsa, SIPTU and the INMO demonstrated against the number of vacant positions at Mayo University Hospital this afternoon. 

Representatives who spoke to The Mayo News said the number of unfilled posts in MUH was having a ‘knock-on effect’ on administrative staff, which was leading to services ‘falling to the ground’. 

There are currently a number of vacancies across a variety of positions in MUH, including several nursing and clerical positions. 

This includes the emergency department, which is down seven clerical staff out of 20 compared to last year. 

From October 2023 to July 2024, posts across the HSE were left unfilled due to a cost-cutting recruitment freeze on various positions. 

More than 40 positions have been filled in MUH since the start of the year, including a number recruited since the recruitment ban was lifted. 

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“The knock-on effect on that is that we were begging people to do overtime and then our regular staff are getting sick because they are trying to cope with the workload. The jobs that went last year didn’t just disappear. We need them staff reinstated,” Noreen Mitchell, Chairperson of the Mayo branch of Forsa, told The Mayo News. 

“The vacant posts that were here last year, the Government seem to think that these jobs that we had last year, we don’t need them anymore. But that’s not the case. We have lots of vacant posts and our services are falling to the ground.

“We all appreciate the nurses and the nurses go a great job and we represent the healthcare professionals as well, but we’re the people that has to get the paperwork ready for all these clinics and if we don’t have staff it’s our patients that are losing out, they are not getting their appointments on time,” she added. 

Maria Reilly, Treasurer of the Mayo branch of Fórsa, said that a number of people had gone on unexpected leave in the St Mary’s building in her department. She said this was having ‘a major knock-on effect to the service’. 

“Everything is a priority, but we’re trying to give the most priority to staff at the desk at the moment. It’s difficult to get rest time for work due to lack of resources,” she said. 

Lending his support to the healthcare workers, Cllr Blackie Gavin (Fianna Fáil) said it was ‘outrageous’ and ‘scandalous’ that hospital workers had to demonstrate over the issue during their lunch break. 

Independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne claimed that there were almost 100 vacancies across the various positions in MUH at present. 

“I had a man who rang me yesterday evening and he was supposed to be in here having his hip operation and they cancelled it. They told him there was no bed, that’s the second cancellation he had,” Cllr Kilcoyne told The Mayo News. 

“I would say if there’s a record level of investment, it’s not in the service to the public and it’s not in the service to the patient. Maybe there is a record level of investment, where is it being spent? Probably in places like the bicycle shelter outside the Dáil, the kind of money that’s there.”

He continued: “Look at the money that’s being ploughed into the children’s hospital. Somebody at some day in the future will drill down under the children’s hospital and they’ll find all this money, it must be gold bars that’s in it. Look at the costs; they are over €2 billion. There’s no head nor tail to the way the HSE and the Department of Health is operating.” 

Cllr Chris Maxwell (Independent Ireland), Cllr Harry Barrett (Independent) and Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh (Sinn Féin) also attended the gathering in support of the workers. 

Cllr Barrett stated that the level of shortfall in nursing staff numbers at MUH was ‘nothing other than a disgrace’.

The outspoken councillor said that overcrowding in the hospital was ‘a crisis created by years of neglect and underfunding by our government’.

Today, there were a total of 19 patients on trolleys in MUH, according to INMO figures. 

“Every person in this community, every child, every parent, every pregnant woman who walks through those hospital doors in need of urgent care deserves nothing less than a safe, well-resourced environment. But right now, that’s not what we’re getting,” stated Cllr Barrett. 

The Mayo News has contacted the HSE regarding the exact number of vacancies at MUH.