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TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said 400 people have been interviewed to become contact tracers, with 65 new staff to begin work this week.
A recruitment drive is underway to hire 500 new staff for the permanent Covid-19 contact tracing operation.
However, the HSE has confirmed to TheJournal.ie that public service workers that were transferred to help with contact tracing at the beginning of the pandemic – many of them from the health service – will only return to their roles once the recruitment drive is complete.
Speaking in the Dáil, the Taoiseach said he spoke to Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan this morning on the issue of testing and tracing, saying:
“We are in agreement that anything we can do to fast-track the recruitment and the appointment of other staff will happen.”
There are currently approximately 280 contact tracers in eight contact tracing centres around the country.
The Taoiseach was responding to People Before Profit’s Mick Barry, who was highlighting an article in The Irish Examiner newspaper.
Dr Ann Dee, a consultant in Public Health Medicine, told the newspaper eight departments are now “throwing in the towel” and giving up on doing “proper” contact tracing.
“We can’t cope with the volume of work,” she said, adding “there are not enough of us to deal with what is coming at us”.
The Taoiseach said the first 500 community swabbers are through the interview process and are going into compliance checking. The first new staff start on 8 October, he said.
“With regard to contact tracing, the first 400 people are through the interview process. There were 65 new staff this week, on 6 October, and there are to be 70 next week, on 12 October.
“We expect to continue to bring in 60 to 70 new staff every week, which will help to free up resources in the wider health service and also get a specific, stronger workforce in place on the contact tracing and swabbing side,” he said.
However, concerns have been raised in recent weeks that workers that were reassigned need to return to their normal roles as it is impacting other areas of the health service.
The Irish Dental Association said resourcing levels have become a full-blown crisis, with 25% to 40% of skilled staff having been assigned to testing and contact tracing, according to the IDA members’ survey.
A statement to TheJournal.ie from the HSE confirmed that staff redeployed to contact tracing come from Human Resources, Community Health Organisations, Environmental Health Officers, and some management admin staff.
“There largest group are Environmental Health Officers, with up to 80 people involved in contact tracing at present. There are also approximately 25 Health and Social Care Professionals involved in contact tracing,” said a HSE spokesperson.
“As the new staff are recruited, trained and become fully operational, the other staff will return to their substantive positions,” they said.
The first new recruits will commence training this week, “and as soon as they are fully operational, staff redeployed from other parts of the HSE will return to their usual roles”, said the HSE.
“The public health service faces a challenge owing to Covid-19, of that there is no doubt. But the resources have been provided and will not be spared in ensuring that what must be done will be done. I have made that very clear, and so has the Minister for Health,” said the Taoiseach.
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Doesn’t say much for their preparedness: surely this should have been done in preparation for a possible second wave (since we could all see it was happening throughout Europe)
@Spartacus Ireland: The problem is that they probably weren’t given the budge to hire people over the summer and leave them sitting around waiting for the work to begin. Interviewing 500 people and hiring that many is a huge achievement in such a short piece of time. It’s the same with extra ICU beds and the staff required to man them; they wouldn’t get the budget unless absolutely necessary. And it suits the government that people blame the HSE instead of chronic underfunding.
@Lisa Saputo: some good points you make. But people can be interviewed and provisionally offered the position should the need arise.
@John Doyle: Yes, it’s called a panel as far as I know
@Spartacus Ireland: yep
@Spartacus Ireland: true but we have also known every winter for the past 20 years that our old sick and most vulnerable would be stacked in corridors on trolleys– the same HSE called that a crisis too but still never managed to solve year after year – I’m not sure why people think their incompetence in administration has suddenly gone away beacuse it hasn’t
@Lisa Saputo: it’s possibly underfunded in this case but the HSE has one of the biggest budgets per capita in Europe. I’m not a solving Government, our current Taoiseach set it up, but as an organisation it needs a complete overhaul. As somebody else they could have done panel interviewing or even hired some. Having other specialists still re deployed 7 months later is insanity.
@Lisa Saputo: or the problem is that the HSE isn’t fit for purpose, no matter how much money you throw at it. There are long standing inherent work practices that make it incapable of picking up the pace in the event of a crisis. In the last two months I’ve experienced both public and private health care systems and while everyone in the public system is well intentioned and committed there is no comparison in efficiency with the private service in getting through numbers.
Day 1 daughter in contact with (unknown) covid patient. Day 6 made aware that contact had tested positive and so she went into isolation. Day 7 called and asked to be tested and was told to wait for contact tracing. Day 8 called again (now symptomatic) and was given test date for day 9. Day 9 test taken. Day 11 positive result. Day 12 now and no contact tracing calls to her from 3 positive cases in house share and none to find her contacts either.
Many many more staff needed or simply what’s the point? My daughter is frantically calling people she knows she was in contact with (not many thank god) but they are being told to wait for contact tracing by the HSE instead of being given tests as a matter of urgency.
@Miss T: that’s awful
@Miss T: HSE showing it is urgently in need of reform.
Funny how this is news presented as a positive move. 8 months late the headline should read.
@John Doyle: Contact tracing is another public service that the HSE cant deliver. Outsource it. FAST.
When you are waiting for test it should be part of process. A simply web page with test ID, name contacts, contact methods , restaurants, pubs etc If negative discard if positive then automate what you can. Phone calling is time intensive.
@Albert Brennerman: An app maybe?
It amazes me that we have 9000 in our defence forces and only a unit of 120 have been asked to carry out contact tracing and not all are doing it.
Some medics are carry out testing and taken into account people over seas and admin staff we still have probably 5000 in a position to carry out contact tracing if they were asked and trained I’d imagine a large number of them would be very capable of doing this job .
@Michael Mcloughlin: The army were involved.
@Michael J Flynn: yes I know a unit of 120 my ex unit at that was it
@Michael J Flynn: I did say there was a unit of 120 asked to do it in Cork and Dublin but not all are because it was voluntary and I know this because it’s my ex unit .
A mass asymptomatic testing programme is needed for students, over 80% of people tested in the uk showed no symptoms at all and could be silently spreading it (article in the Guardian today)
@SaveTheTrees: You’ve misread that situation. 80 odd percent of people feel no effect of this virus. Surely that says we’ve massively overblown this whole thing? This isn’t news in rest of Europe the way it is here. We’ve lost our bleeding minds. People shouting for level 5 knowing deaths (and probably cases too) are down 97 percent on the peak. Come off it.
@Monster Munch: If the cases continue to rise then the death rate will too. We’re already seeing it creep back into nursing homes. We have seen an increase in hospital admissions and we currently have 33 icu beds available. A high percentage of our population is obese or have underlying conditions not to mention the elderly so you may be willing to roll the dice – but I’m not – not with my life or the lives of others.
We should be trying to get our hands on the Regeneron drug. Seems to work!
These 65 should have been recruited in March or April!!
Do the 500 community swabbers have nursing, medical or paramedical qualifications? The current advert is looking for people with a full or applied LC.
@Annette McGuckin: Where is the advert? Searching isn’t bring me much luck
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