HSE admits to further months of delay filling 12 therapy posts for Offaly and Midlands counties
HSE admits to further months of delay filling 12 therapy posts for Offaly and Midlands counties
THE HSE has been criticised for ongoing staffing shortages that continue to block access to essential Primary Care therapy services for children in the wider midland region.
In a response to a representation from Offaly TD,Carol Nolan, the HSE confirmed that despite a child being accepted for Dietitian and Occupational Therapy services at a Primary Care Referral meeting in December 2023, no appointment or timeline for therapy can yet be provided to the family.
The HSE also admitted to Deputy Nolan that while 12 new development posts for therapy services have been allocated to the Midlands, including two senior posts (one for Dietetics and one for Occupational Therapy) specifically for this area, it will still take “a number of months” for these posts to be occupied by clinicians.
“While this is completely unacceptable, it has also become the norm for so many families and children in need of urgent intervention. In that sense, successive Governments and the HSE have normalised a situation where there is effectively no service provision of any kind once you move beyond referral and diagnosis,” said Deputy Nolan.
“Families in Offaly have already waited well over fifteen months for vital therapy services, and the HSE’s own response confirms that even with newly allocated posts, they will wait several more months simply because the positions cannot be filled promptly.”
“I accept this is not a funding issue, but it is a clear failure of recruitment and workforce planning. Offaly and the midlands region has been given the posts, yet the HSE cannot get clinicians into them in a reasonable timeframe. Children cannot wait indefinitely while the HSE struggles to staff services that have already been approved.”
“I am calling on the HSE and the Minister for Health to treat the immediate filling of these therapy posts as an urgent priority. Interim measures must also be put in place to support affected families in the meantime.”
“I will continue to raise this matter until the vacancies are filled," she stressed.