Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I will take this matter on behalf of the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, I asked the Deputy whether she wished to withdraw the matter but she did not.

I understand that the Mater Misercordiae University Hospital has experienced some difficulty in recruiting both permanent and temporary specialist oncology nurses for the oncology day unit in the hospital. Due to a combination of resignation, sick leave and maternity leave, there were several vacancies. The Minister was assured by the HSE that all avenues have been and are being explored to address the lack of oncology nurses. As a result of these efforts, one nurse commenced induction yesterday and another will commence induction in December, after which all staff nurse vacancies will be filled.

The Mater Hospital is working with the clinicians and nursing staff to reduce the impact on service delivery through redeployment of appropriately trained staff and the provision of additional raining. The national cancer control programme has also supported the Mater Hospital in resourcing an additional oncologist who has been appointed and will commence in the new year. The hospital continues to work closely with the Ireland East Hospital Group in conducting a review of its operational capacity as demand for oncology day services continues to rise.

More generally, there are recruitment and retention difficulties in certain other areas of the health service, including nursing specialties. In these instances, the HSE utilises a range of long-term measures such as overseas recruitment with agencies, rolling recruitment campaigns, recruitment fairs, social media recruitment campaigns and short-term measures such as staff reassignment to support service delivery.

The HSE also continues to offer contracts to graduate nurses and midwives once they have obtained their registration from the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland, NMBI. The Minister believes the recent pay proposals put forward by the Public Service Pay Commission were a positive step towards making the public health service a more attractive place to work for nurses and midwives. The Government proposals made to address the issue of new entrants' pay will also benefit approximately 10,000 nurses to the value of approximately €3,000 each. The recruitment and retention of nurses and midwives has been a consistent priority for the Minister. Challenges exist with recruitment and retention of these professions against a backdrop of shortages at a global level.

Despite the challenges, the data show that the HSE has managed to increase the number of nurses and midwives employed. When the number of nurses and midwives employed by the HSE is compared between September this year and last year, it shows that there was an increase of 1,050 whole-time equivalents.

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