Healthcare workers in Ireland, including the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association (MLSA), are preparing for industrial action due to significant staffing shortages and unaddressed pay disputes. The MLSA highlighted a recruitment crisis leading to many unfilled medical scientist positions, which has worsened over the past year. They claim the Health Service Executive (HSE) has suppressed these posts without properly evaluating the impact on healthcare services. Additionally, only minimal increases in staffing have occurred while laboratory workloads have surged uncontrollably, leading to unsustainable reliance on agency staff and outsourcing.
"The HSE has suppressed these frontline posts without assessing the impact on the service of the permanent loss of these posts and has refused to share data with trade unions on how many funded and approved vacancies have been suppressed."
"Medical scientists staffing in some hospitals is running as much as 40pc below the recommended level and the HSE has in some locations been contracting and increasingly reliance on short-term agency staff."
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