The current HSE recruitment policy for appointing consultants at Letterkenny University Hospital is in urgent need of review, according to Donegal County Councillor, Ciaran Brogan.
Cllr Brogan, who is a member of the Regional Health Forum, said the current model for recruiting additional staff and filling the many important positions within the HSE nationally must be reviewed as a matter of urgency.
“There is simply far too much red tape around the current recruitment process. The time-gap between a position being advertised to the date it is filled is far too long.
“The consultants’ advisory committee, national recruitment service and public appointments board are all part of the recruitment process. The most recent case I am aware of involved a person who was offered a position five months after it was advertised. However, in the intervening period, he was offered and accepted a job elsewhere and this put the whole process back to square one,” Cllr Brogan said.
The Fianna Fail councillor added said tax-payers are footing the bills for locums.
He continued “There are millions being spent annually on agencies who are capitalising on the poor management of the recruitment process. It can cost up to three times as much to keep a locum in place. This approach doesn’t work and impacts severely on the patient because there is no continuity for the patient,” he added.
“The solution to this problem is simple – recruitment for HSE positions needs to be placed in the trusted hands of local management. This approach would do away with the multiple layers of bureaucracy which are choking the current system.”
“The quicker positions at Letterkenny University Hospital are filled, the better for the patients on the waiting lists. The more permanent positions that can be filled at Letterkenny University Hospital, the more continuity there will be for the patient. The welfare and well-being of the patient must always be the priority.”