SAVAGE CUTS IN HSE WEST REGION INTOLERABLE…BLAME LIES SQUARELY AT GOVERNMENT’S DOOR
Issued : Monday 30 August, 2010
The savage cuts proposed for the HSE West (stretching from Donegal to Limerick) cannot be tolerated and must be resisted. They are quite simply too deep and too hurtful to the most sick and vulnerable in the region.
Already 750 posts are gone in nursing and mid-wifery alone in HSE West: up to 1,000 other posts are threatened most of them frontline. Managers are put in the ludicrous position of having to pay extra for agency workers because they are not allowed to hire directly, thus putting more pressure on their budgets. This is sheer madness.
Comments by Minister O’Cuiv that the HSE must inform people of what is happening is a joke. The public know what is happening they are experiencing on a daily basis the decimation of health services following the approval by Minister O Cuiv and his Government colleagues of savage cutbacks in frontline services. The blame lies squarely at the Government’s door.
The combined effect of last year’s Budget cuts and of the moratorium on staff replacement is the cause of the slashing of services in the Region …..and we can expect other regions to follow. On top of that we have already been told by Minister Harney that there will be more of the same in the next Budget.
The Health Unions are perfectly right in their opposition and I fully support their stand on behalf of the Labour Party.
I am now calling on all T.D.’s from North Donegal to West Limerick to take a stand on the destruction of our health services on behalf of the people we represent. Government Ministers cannot vote for cuts in Government and wring their hands West of the Shannon.
