CUH boss says hospital 'unsafe' for patients amid shortfall of over 1,000 staff
The chief executive of Cork University Hospital has warned that the facility is unsafe due to a shortfall of over 1,000 staff members. She attributes the crisis to bureaucratic recruitment processes and has called for urgent approval of priority posts to prevent patient safety incidents.
Why it matters
This highlights critical systemic failures in public healthcare staffing that directly threaten patient safety and service capacity ahead of winter.
The chief executive of Cork University Hospital (CUH) has admitted the hospital is not safe ahead of the coming winter in a scathing letter over recruitment sent to the HSE.
Jennifer Kearney told Priscilla Lynch, integrated healthcare area manager for HSE South West, that the hospital is down 1,050 staff.
"My responsibility as chief executive is not simply to comply with a process," she wrote in a letter first reported on RT radio.
"It is to speak clearly when I believe that process is creating a foreseeable risk to patients and staff.
"I would rather raise that concern now, when there is still an opportunity to act, than remain silent and explain afterwards why we did not."
Ms Kearney pointed the finger at "increasingly bureaucratic processes" and "a prolonged suppression of recruitment" for the fact that 348 whole-time equivalent (WTE) posts are vacant despite funding for them already secured.
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