Health workers’ exodus

THE rush by healthcare workers to retire in advance of the Government’s public service pension deadline at the end of February could leave Mid-West hospitals hopelessly understaffed.

You can hardly blame workers for enquiring about their pension entitlements, given their future income would be determined on the salary scales that were in place before the public service pay cuts. The dilemma facing health workers is the same as that which is troubling teachers and public service employees, many of whom still have plenty to offer in their respective jobs.
The prospect of teachers marching from their classrooms or public service employees leaving their offices due to the threat of a reduced pension is not in the best interest of the country but the very idea of front-line healthcare workers joining the mass exodus is very scary.
In Clare and the Mid-West, up to 330 HSE employees, including 186 nurses, have signalled their willingness to retire ahead of the pension deadline. Also willing to go are 14 medical and dental staff; 22 health and social care staff; 80 general support staff and 30 management and administration staff.
There is already a serious shortage of nurses in many hospitals due to retirements and cutbacks, which included non-replacement staff.
INMO representative Mary Fogarty warned the impact of the loss of even half of these front-line nurses through retirement would be “catastrophic” for health services.
She said nurses working in acute hospitals are effectively being driven out of the service because of “increasing levels of stress and pressure as a result of ongoing cutbacks in services and staffing levels”. She also stressed further significant cuts would threaten patient safety, unless replacement staff are hired.
HSE West Forum member, Councillor Brian Meaney has urged Health Minister James Reilly to lift the national recruitment embargo to ensure a safe health service is provided in the region.
At this point, the HSE does not have a definite list of people who will be retiring. However Mid-West area manager, Bernard Gloster, confirmed the agency has the numbers and grades of staff that have sought calculations as to their entitlements under the various pension schemes.
“It will obviously remain subject to assessment of the final detail of receipt of retirements as to the impact on frontline services provision associated with these retirements, as it is envisaged the majority will not be replaced,” he said.
What will this mean for hospital patients? Will they be left with only a skeleton nursing team to care for them at any time? And what about the various other staff that will have disappeared from hospitals and the community healthcare sector?
There is a real danger of reaching a point where some elements of the health system will just grind to a halt.

Planning for tourism
THE country may be enveloped in post-Budget blues but Shannon Development this week turned to the future and revealed its key 2012 tourism targets.
The authority, determined to build on improvements in the industry in the current year, is adopting a very positive outlook and this is reflected in the language used in the official statement presented at a tourism planning workshop in Bunratty on Tuesday. “Is” and “will” are at the core of Shannon Development’s stated objectives.
Since Shannon Airport has been central to the development of the Mid-West, it is hardly surprising that it gets top billing on the authority’s 2012 tourism programme.
Shannon Development, along with key partners, has initiated a new airline route development fund for Shannon Airport, which will be used to help secure additional scheduled and charter business. This initiative is expected to attract an additional 150,000 visitors.
“We are advanced in our plans to establish the fund and are already in discussions with public and private sector interests in the Shannon Region. The new fund will allow the region compete for strategic international air connectivity for Shannon Airport,” Dr Vincent Cunnane, chief executive at Shannon Development confirmed.
Although the economic environment is quite bleak, Shannon Development is drawing solace from the fact that tourism is showing some signs of recovery, with a 7.4% increase in international visitors to Ireland this year. As a direct result of its own work, the company boosted bed nights by 310,000 and generated an additional €30 million in tourism revenue for the region.
That is yesterday’s news, however, and Shannon Development is upping the ante big time for 2012 in terms of the target for new visitors. An ambitious target of 590,000 is dependent on the success of two specific strategies; building the new airline fund and, in partnership with its Shannon Region tourism trade partners, developing the sport, activity and family-friendly tourism brand.
Shannon Development will be casting a wide net to catch that very high value species – the tourist. The schedule for the coming year includes 40 national and international trade and consumer events in six countries.
The company will focus on delivering seven new international regional showcase marketing events for Shannon Region Tourism Trade and Industry, with a specific target of 140,000 visitors and will challenge the region’s top 10 attractions to launch new events in 2012 programmes, with the potential to deliver 50,000 new visitors.
An interesting concept is that of getting the region’s top 20 festival and event organisers to add on one extra night to their 2012 programmes, which would have the potential to deliver 100,000 visitors.
Taking things to a new level, Shannon Development, in partnership with the University of Limerick, will launch Ireland’s first Tourism Innovation Platform in 2012. This is to assist tourism enterprises to introduce and accelerate an innovation culture, the result of which will lead to more sustainable and viable tourism enterprises.
A Tourism Innovation Platform is being established at Shannon Development’s Innovation Works at the National Technology Park, Limerick, which will specialise in providing capability building in the region’s tourism industry.
Not only Mid-West businesses but also community groups and individuals can play a part in the revival of the tourism industry. There are many strands to the Shannon Development strategy for 2012 and somewhere along the line, there’s a place for an input by everybody; from developing new tourism products right down to promoting local walks.