The Government and HSE facilitate serious financial waste due to their overdependence on costly and more expensive agency staff. A direct result of the recruitment and retention crisis that escalated under this Fine Gael government, agency staff rose from €158m in 2011 to €293m last year.
Every day last year the HSE spent approximately €1 million on costly agency and locum doctors, nurses, and other staff in order to fill posts left vacant due to the recruitment and retention crisis.
Last year the State spent €105 million on agency doctors. €5.3 million was spent on agency staff last year in Mayo General Hospital alone.
Hospitals have to rely on this staffing mechanism to fill vacant posts because the HSE and the government have failed to address the recruitment and retention crisis.
Health service staff and their unions have consistently reported working conditions, facilities, supports, training opportunities and pay as the cause of the recruitment and retention crisis, and until these issues are addressed the crisis will continue and these staggering sums of money will be wasted on agency staff at Mayo General Hospital and across the State.
