Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is only very recently that the INMO has started to count trolley waiting times for children's hospitals. That was a new departure and an area it never went into previously, primarily because it was not much of a feature. It was starting to become a feature more and more. That the INMO counts waiting times now is a clear indication that there are issues regarding staffing. One can talk about backfilling as staff progressively move out but if one is only backfilling to the current level, one is still going to be understaffed in the original hospitals before people start to move. There is genuine concern among staff that the push to open the urgent care facility will leave already hard-pressed staff in the main hospitals under even greater pressure as personnel move out. While we are told the plan is to backfill rapidly, if the staff are there to backfill, why are they not there to fill the roster and ensure staffing levels are maintained at the required level? There is no group or category of workers in the hospital outside, possibly, of administration where people are operating with a full staff complement.