More health service staff must work a seven-day roster if waiting times are to be cut, Ciara Kelly has said. 

Over the St Patrick’s Day weekend, there were 230 people on hospital trolleys waiting for emergency treatment. 

By contrast, after the St Brigid’s Day bank holiday in February, there were 617 people on trolleys - close to three times as many. 

A hospital worker wheels a patient on a trolley. Picture by: Alamy.com. 

One potential reason for the two different sets of numbers is thought to be changes to staff rostering.

“We have had members of the health service on here the week after a bank holiday weekend bemoaning numbers on trolleys and saying it’s a disgrace,” Ciara told fellow Newstalk Breakfast presenter Shane Coleman.  

“You and I have both put to them, ‘Is that not to do with the fact that a lot of your members, for example, will have taken three days off?’ 

“Apparently, Bernard Gloucester and the new Minister for Health - and there’s some credit due here to the new Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill - has insisted that there will be rostered on over weekends, essential staff and senior doctors. 

“They want them not just on call but they want them on site.” 

An elderly patient. Picture by: Alamy.com.

Ciara, who previously worked as a junior doctor and GP, said she feels working in the health service is the “toughest job you’ll ever do”

However, she strongly believes the service must change if patients are to get better care. 

“At the end of the day, people get sick seven-days a week,” Ciara said. 

“It cannot really be anything other than shift work unless we want to have these pinch points, these gluts, these backlogs - all of that kind of thing. 

“That’s not good for people… and I don’t think the health service can be run for the benefit of anyone but patients.

“I think this is a reflection of that and it’s working.” 

A patient receiving treatment at a hospital. Picture by: Alamy.com. 

Shane acknowledged that “people work really hard in the health service” but also agreed that change is needed. 

“The reality is health service work practices have always been geared towards staff - not towards patients,” he said. 

“We shouldn’t be shocked that if there’s a change in that, if it’s actually more geared towards patients, it actually brings results. 

“We saw what can happen during COVID when everyone rallies together, when everyone is flexible and agrees to make change and come out of their silos. 

“Amazing things happened in the health service and amazing things happened over the weekend - let’s see more of it.” 

In the Programme for Government, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael promised to “develop a new workforce plan to address immediate staffing shortages and longer-term needs.”

Main image: Ciara Kelly in the Newstalk studio. Image: Newstalk