Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State referred to the recruitment of staff as being impossible. We need to drill down on the reasons for that. The reason is that the HSE is trying to recruit staff into a chaotic situation where they are required to work in an understaffed ward with one person having to take on all the responsibilities which should be shared among three or four people. As a result of that people do not want to stay in the HSE system and are therefore emigrating to other countries where they can at least make progress in trying to qualify. Those problems exist across all HSE areas and not just in the west because of the chaotic system that has arisen over years of underinvestment.

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