Health department refuses to allow community workers to ease nursing home staff shortages

The Department of Health is blocking proposals to deploy trained and qualified community and voluntary agency staff in to nursing homes and other residential settings battling the coronavirus, according to Fórsa.

The union has called for so-called ‘section 39’ agencies and their staff to be brought under the remit of the HSE for the duration of the coronavirus crisis. But it says the department won’t agree because it fears the move would lead to marginal additional short-term costs.

The section 39 agencies are independent of the HSE, but receive public money to provide disability, homelessness, addiction and other services. Fórsa, which first proposed that they be temporarily brought into the HSE a month ago, says the move would ease voluntary transfers of staff into essential health service areas including residential settings.

It would also underpin jobs in the sector by giving financial stability to agencies that are currently delivering reduced services because of Covid-related restrictions, according to the union.

It would also underpin jobs in the sector by giving financial stability to agencies that are currently delivering reduced services because of Covid-related restrictions, according to the union.

Fórsa’s head of health, Éamonn Donnelly, said the agencies should be treated in the same way as private hospitals, which have effectively been brought into the public health system for the time being. He said he believed the HSE would agree to this, but that the Department of Health was refusing to sanction the move.

“These agencies and their staff need maximum stability in a time of crisis. They are also a source of capable, qualified and Garda-vetted staff, who have the necessary skills needed to hit the ground running in the coronavirus response in our communities.

These agencies and their staff need maximum stability in a time of crisis. They are also a source of capable, qualified and Garda-vetted staff, who have the necessary skills needed to hit the ground running in the coronavirus response in our communities.

“Staff in the sector are telling me that they are ready to make a bigger contribution. They will respond if the Government seeks their support, and the best way to facilitate this is to bring the Section 39s under the HSE umbrella for the duration of the crisis,” he said.

Mr Donnelly said the financial uncertainty surrounding the sector meant some section 39 agencies were at risk of going under. “Thousands of vulnerable people depend on their services, and the liability would fall on an already overstretched HSE if any of them close or fail,” he said.

Fórsa and other unions in the sector have long maintained that section 39s provide public services, and that they and their staff should be treated in the same way as mainstream public service health agencies.