A total of 176 patients at Letterkenny University Hospital had their discharge time delayed due to a shortfall of carers in the community.
The figures were disclosed at today’s meeting of the Western Regional Health Forum.
The worrying data showed an increase this year in the number of patients being delayed because of the shortage.
The figures showed that 38 patients had their discharge delayed in the second half of 2020 with this figure rising to 57 in 2021.
However, so far this year a total of 81 patients have had their discharge delayed from Letterkenny hospital because of a shortfall in carers in the community.
No details were given as to how long the delay in discharge times were.
Councillor Albert Doherty asked will the HSE commence a recruitment of Home Care staff campaign and offer improved conditions of service and salary that will enable and result in employment conditions for Home Carers being a viable career option?
He was told that a robust recruitment campaign for Health Care Support Assistants, HCSA (formerly called home helps) in the Donegal area.
Ann Congrove, Chief Operations Officer of the Saolta University Health Care Group said “This process managed through the Human Resources Donegal Community Services has been in place for the past 3 years which to date has been very effective.
“The recruitment is based on a rolling campaign process and interviews are held every 6-8 weeks depending on the number of applicants and the service need in the individual areas.
“In addition in line with the nationally agreed Health Care Support Assistants Revised Contract, all HCSA’s in Donegal have now received a HSE contract, which includes a job evaluation/rebanding process, which in turn offers an improvement in their remuneration, terms and conditions.”
Dermot Monaghan, Chief Officer of the Community Healthcare Organisation admitted that they were “maxxing out” on allocated hours for carers and said it was not always possible to recruit such people.
He added that the numbers of delayed discharges are low compared to the rest of the country and added there will be a jobs fair which he hoped would bring on other staff.
