Support staff working in the health service receive significantly less in financial support when assaulted compared to health professionals, clerical officers and nursing staff. 

HSE figures reveal that support staff - which include healthcare assistants, porters, catering, cleaning and security staff - are the second biggest category impacted by serious physical assaults in the workplace after nurses.

SIPTU Health Division Organiser Kevin Figgis said the disparity in some cases can be significant. 

“They will be entitled to a benefit of up to three months of pay,” he told Newstalk. 

“However, this is in contrast with other health professionals - doctors or clerical officers could get up to six months of pay [and] a nurse or a midwife could get up to a year.” 

The issue will be discussed at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health today.

A woman cleaning a hospital. 

'Very, very bad'

Last year, official figures released in response to a Parliamentary question from Sinn Féin revealed there had been 78,000 physical, verbal or sexual assaults on healthcare staff had been reported to the HSE in the previous 18 months.

One healthcare worker told Newstalk that things had become “very, very bad” in Irish hospitals and that he had been kicked, punched, spat at and threatened. 

“Sometimes you go home and say to yourself, no money in the world is worth this,” he said.

“The pay is not even great at the moment so a lot of people have left and can’t cope. It is just a lot of pressure on them to try and do their job as well and they just can’t.”

Main image: A hospital cleaner. Picture by: Alamy.com