125 staff on Covid-related leave at Mayo University Hospital

THERE are 125 nurses/staff in Mayo University Hospital who are on leave either because they are suffering from Covid-19, have been identified as close contacts or are cocooning, figures released to Aontú reveal.

The figures, issued to the party yesterday (Monday) following a parliamentary question, are as of Wednesday, January 13.

Aontú representative for Mayo, Paul Lawless, has again called for clarity from the government in relation to the Be On Call For Ireland database after the statistics released show the extent of the staffing issues at Mayo University Hospital.

Said Mr. Lawless: “Yesterday, the Chief Operations Officer at the Saolta Healthcare Group, Ann Cosgrove, responded to a question from Aontú and confirmed that at present there are 125 nurses/staff in Mayo University Hospital who are not at work either because they are suffering from Covid-19 or because they have been identified as close contacts.

“The situation in the hospital is becoming extremely concerning.

“Hospitals around the country are crying out for staff. There are 172 staff absent in Sligo and 38 in Roscommon Hospital.”

Mr. Lawless continued: “We know that at the start of the pandemic, Minister Simon Harris announced the Be On Call For Ireland campaign, which encouraged healthcare workers to sign up to assist in fighting the virus on the front lines. Some 70,000 people signed up, which is indicative of the courage, sincerity and community-orientated attitudes of our wonderful nurses, assistants and medical staff in this country.

“Shockingly, it appears that only a few hundred of them have been recruited to work in the health service.

“We in Aontú have been consistently asking the government for clarity regarding the status of that database of 70,000 people. We have had many perfectly qualified nurses contacting us to say that they signed up but heard nothing.

“In a Dáil debate on January 14, our party leader, Peadar Tóibín, TD, raised the issue with Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, who, alarmingly, was not able to provide an update on the database.

“The idea that there are 70,000 staff ready to work but who haven't been contacted is a huge slap in the face to the nurses at breaking point in the stressful of situations in hospital wards up and down the country.”