![\"\"](\"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/2.57603143.jpg\")
Ireland\u2019s healthcare system is facing a \u201ctsunami of missed care\u201d due to non-Covid care being put on hold during the pandemic, an Oireachtas health committee has said.<\/p>\nIreland\u2019s healthcare system is facing a \u201ctsunami of missed care\u201d due to non-Covid care being put on hold during the pandemic, an Oireachtas health committee has said.<\/p>\n
Professor Robert Landers of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) warned that the health service will not be able to deal with the issues coming down the line in a timely fashion and that it will stretch the service to the \u201cabsolute limit\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no doubt that we\u2019re facing a tsunami of missed care or late care, and unlike the Covid crisis we know exactly the scale of this and it will stretch our health services to the absolute limit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s equally no doubt that the public health system as currently structured does not have the capacity either in terms of personnel or infrastructure or beds to deal in a timely fashion with that tsunami.\u201d<\/p>\n
Professor Landers said in the short term, the private healthcare providers will have to be used to address the shortfall in care. But in the long term, the health service needed to \u201cact now\u201d and build up the number of hospital beds to avoid longer waiting lists.<\/p>\n
There are currently more than 800,000 people on hospital waiting lists.<\/p>\n
He added that until the consultant recruitment and retention crisis was addressed and 700 vacant posts filled, there was no hope of matching the demand for post-Covid care.<\/p>\n
The IHCA vice president was among a number of health representatives from the IHCA, Irish Medical Organization (IMO) and Irish Nurses and Midwives Organization (INMO) who were before the Health Committee on Tuesday to outline the challenges facing the sector in the midst of the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Anthony Owens of the Irish Medical Organization told the committee that it was \u201cdeplorable\u201d one year on from the first case of Covid-19 in Ireland that there had been \u201cno substantial and systemic action\u201d taken to address the recruitment and retention crisis.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cAs a consequence, waiting lists have grown and stress and burnout is prevalent among the medical workforce.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last year hospital waiting lists have grown by approximately 70,000, or 9%, and now stand at 838,000 \u2013 yet the number of vacant consultant posts or posts filled on a temporary basis has risen to 728,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Phil Ni Sheaghdha of the INMO told the committee the Government\u2019s treatment of student nurses and midwives in the midst of the pandemic could only be described as \u201cexploitation\u201d.<\/p>\n
She told the committee they were \u201cgoing into the eye of the storm\u201d and were not getting paid for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving an unpaid workforce of 1,500 people when you have 6,000 staff out sick: What do you think they\u2019re doing? I don\u2019t accept, and nor do they, that they are standing in a supervisory capacity and not engaged in work,\u201d Ms Ni Sheaghdha said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course they\u2019re working \u2013 and they\u2019re not getting paid.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said they no longer had the \u201cluxury\u201d of observing and learning their craft. Instead, they were assisting in the delivery of healthcare.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s only one definition for somebody that goes into a workplace during a pandemic, doesn\u2019t get paid and works,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is exploitation, and we cannot accept that that issue is not being addressed by government.\u201d<\/p>\n
TDs and senators heard that healthcare workers not only had the stress of caring for people with Covid-19 in difficult conditions, but that they were also dealing with very real issues to do with childcare caused by Covid-19 and the closure of schools.<\/p>\n
Dr Gabrielle Colleran, vice-president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, said children of healthcare workers in Northern Ireland and the UK were going to school, but she said Irish frontline workers had been \u201cabandoned\u201d by the Government when schools shut without any supports in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy children, my colleagues\u2019 children, are being traumatized,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re falling behind, we\u2019re too tired and burned out to help them with home schooling when we get home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got home at quarter past nine last Monday and my seven-year-old was sitting there with her Abair Liom on the table waiting to do her Irish homework with me. I just burst into tears. I had nothing left to give.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s stressed because she\u2019s falling behind, the anxiety is through the roof. We\u2019re not working from home so we\u2019re not there to support them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel we\u2019ve been abandoned by the State at exactly the time when we have all stepped up.\u201d<\/p>\n