Working conditions in hospitals are so bad that sometimes I get no sleep at all

I WOULDN’T SAY there’s been a single week since I’ve started working about a year and a half ago in the hospital that I’ve only had to work 48 hours a week – as the 2004 EU Working Time Directive instructs.

It can be anything up to over 100 hours a week. There was a couple of hours where I was working over Christmas where I was on call three times a week and you’d have to work the next day post-call as well.

Generally you wouldn’t get any sleep, or you might get one or two hours. You could end up working anything up to 36 hours in a row.

Thirty-six hours would be a record. But once a week you’d generally have to work 32 hours in a row.

It’s a killer. Adrenaline tends to get you through the first 20 hours. You start to feel the burn at around 4am. You focus then on the ward for a few hours, you make your way through it, you’re generally okay that night, but then the next day is really exhausting.

Is this government committed to media diversity?

 

via Column: Working conditions in hospitals are so bad that sometimes I get no sleep at all.

via Column: Working conditions in hospitals are so bad that sometimes I get no sleep at all.

Health Concerns in Hospitals

Almost every national or local paper you pick up in Ireland has something to say about cutbacks, staffing, budget overruns, wards closing etc.

If this continues hospitals are more likely to become places of risk rather than a place where the ill or injured are treated.

Beware you local hospital may kill you.

Here are just a few examples

Donegal Daily:

LETTERKENNY General Hospital is the worst funded hospital in the State, receiving the least amount of cash per patient.

And staffing levels per patient are also the worst, figures obtained by Sinn Fein TDs Pádraig MacLochlainn and Pearse Doherty show.

The TDs released the figures to Donegal Daily – confirming a report on this site more than nine months ago.

Dublin hospitals get twice as much cash.

Roscommon Herald

THERE ARE growing concerns over staffing levels at Roscommon County Hospital where numbers remain below the employment ceiling, the Herald can reveal.

Local sources have this week raised concern over staffing levels at the hospital, which remain below the permitted ceiling of 285 whole time equivalent (WTE) staff, according to the latest figures available.

New figures show that staff levels were 2.5 percent below the WTE ceiling in the month of June, when there were 279.73 staff at the hospital.

The concerns come as it also emerges that the county hospital had the highest absenteeism levels in the Galway/Roscommon Hospital Group and that agency and overtime costs had been dramatically cut over the past year.

Figures for June showed that absenteeism levels exceeded seven percent at the county hospital. This compared to four percent at Galway University and Portiuncula hospitals.

A further breakdown of the figures showed that absenteeism rates at the county hospital were highest among other patient and client care staff (12.5%), management and admin staff (9.9%) and nursing staff (9.5%).

Wexford Echo

A public protest against the closure of an operating theatre at Wexford General Hospital  will be held outside the hospital on Saturday afternoon.

Cllr. Anthony Kelly of Sinn Fein is calling on Wexford’s Oireachtas members to immediately come out and call for this decision to be reversed.

“I’m calling on the people of County Wexford, irrespective of their political beliefs, to come out and support this event,” said Cllr. Kelly, who added, “The buck clearly stops with the Minister for Health.”

RTE NEWS

The hospital was over budget by over €10m in July.

It said it sought a letter of support from the Health Service Executive for the overdraft from AIB.

In a statement tonight, the hospital said it was managing its finances prudently and had made savings of 6% in its budget this year, despite a 5% increase in in-patient care.

Tallaght is one of around five major hospitals that are heavily over budget and last year it was over budget by over €14m.

The Government has said there will be no supplementary health budget to assist health overruns.

The HSE said tonight that under Service Level Agreements (SLAs) these hospitals are permitted to seek an overdraft up to 7% of their budget for the final quarter of the year.

Other hospitals that have exceeded their budgets are Beaumont, Limerick Regional, Galway University Hospital and Cork University Hospital.