Deputy Pearse Doherty is calling on urgent intervention from Government in order to avoid what’s being described as a ‘potentially disastrous’ situation developing within Speech and Language therapy services in the county.
His comments come after it emerged today that services in West Donegal could face serious disruption owing to a failure to provide cover for a staff member who is shortly due to take maternity leave.
Deputy Doherty said he has been contacted by a number of families throughout West Donegal who raised concerns over the possible curtailment of Speech of Language services over the coming weeks.
It follows claims that patients were told that cover was not being provided for a staff member who is shortly expected to take maternity leave.
Deputy Doherty said “Immediately following receiving these reports I tabled a Question in the Dáil to the Minister for Health in which I very clearly asked him to confirm whether or not cover would be in place during this period for when maternity leave is anticipated in the service.
“The question was referred to the HSE to respond and in their reply to me which I‘ve since received they explain that approval for cover is granted contingent on the HSE’s
financial position as the additional cost must be met from within existing budgets.
“It goes onto state that in the event that cover cannot be approved or if a post becomes unfilled, then existing staffing resources will be reviewed and this may involve a reallocation of staff on a temporary basis into areas where no cover is available.
“It is quite clear from the HSE’s response that approval hasn’t been granted to provide the appropriate clinical cover, and that service disruptions in West Donegal are likely to take place as a result.
“While the HSE claims that service users will be managed on a ‘clinical prioritisation basis’, the statement gives no guarantee that patients will not experience appointment cancellations and service stoppages during this period of staff leave.”
The Sinn Fein TD said this admission by the HSE is simply scandalous and what this could now mean for service users and their families is a situation whereby it may be many weeks or indeed months before services return to normal and appointments resume.
He added “There are serious questions for both the HSE and the Government here over why, when maternity leave had been anticipated within the service, that they made no provisions for alternative arrangements to be put in place to ensure that service users would not be affected.
“It is abhorrent to think that patients here may now be facing a wait time of many weeks and months before they will be able to receive the treatment and care they need.
“This complete failure by the authorities will have huge consequences for patients, their families as well as for staff who will no doubt be forced to stretch themselves even further in order to mitigate the worst of these harmful effects.
“I am calling on the Government to urgently make the additional resources needed available to Donegal Speech and Language services in a bid to avoid these disruptions coming down the line, otherwise the harm which this will cause could be potentially disastrous.”
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