Community swabbers want health minister to intervene with HSE

Community swabbers at Covid test centres such as that at St Loman’s Hospital, Mullingar, have asked Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to intervene in a row over review of their pay rates and have called on the Health Executive Service to honour promises of redeployment.

Many fear they will be out of work as testing and tracing is scaled down over the next two months.

A swabber at a local Covid test centre contacted the Westmeath Examiner to voice frustration that what they described as “promises” of redeployment have not materialised. Our source says they and their colleagues submitted CVs a number of months ago in the expectation of redeployment, but that there has been no progress since. According to documentation seen by the Westmeath Examiner, talks were taking place at the end of May between HSE management and SIPTU about transitioning the community testing service workforce.

In response, the HSE said agreement had been reached between them and SIPTU in relation to the transitioning of the community testing workforce beyond June. Testing will continue at the centres on a six/ seven-day basis and the required number of community swabbers will be retained to run that service.

All relevant re-assignment options for community swabbers are being examined and every effort is being made on a daily basis to accommodate as many redeployments as possible in line with service needs as they arise, the statement continued.

Our source said the workers spent their days looking down the throat of a deadly disease, putting their lives at risk, standing in all weathers swabbing up to 1000 people a day, some of whom were extremely ill.

They were basically working in a field hospital in bitterly cold, windy weather in PPE gear that was more suited to a warm hospital environment. They are now being thrown on the dole queue with promises of redeployment broken and no training for new positions being offered, they maintain.

Many are highly qualified and could be redeployed and called back for swabbing if needed. A lot of them were working but out because of Covid and instead of sitting at home and collecting the €350 Covid payment, they answered the nation’s call.

They are the pick of the crop, a team of genuine, hard workers and any employer would be lucky to get them, our source added. They claimed that workers send in their CVs as requested, but no interviews, no talk of redeployment and no training resulted. “The union (SIPTU) has worked hard nationally to agree the ‘HR Principles Document for the Agreed Transition of Community Testing’, but I don’t think it is being fully implemented locally – not for us anyway,” they added.

In a statement SIPTU said the swabbers wanted the health minister to intervene to resolve their dispute with the HSE and Department of Health over a review of pay rates for the essential workers.

SIPTU sector organiser, Damian Ginley, said that despite numerous attempts to have this matter resolved, members were left with no alternative but to seek an urgent referral of the dispute to the Workplace Relations Commission.

As the government proposes to significantly scale back current Covid testing facilities from June 30, their members are requesting that the minister for health “personally intervenes at this late stage to ensure that this matter is addressed immediately”.

“All our members are seeking is for the commitment to allow the swabber grade to be considered under the support staff job evaluation scheme to be honoured. They were available to partake in evaluations only to have their review appointments cancelled by the HSE,” Mr Ginley claimed.

He said: “This dispute centres on the failure of the HSE and Department of Health to honour clearly written commitments to have the Covid test centre swabber grade reviewed as part of a wider job evaluation scheme for health sector support workers.

“Our members are appalled and angered at the lack of respect being shown to swabbers. Covid test centre swabbers provide a key role in the test and trace approach adopted by this Government in response to the pandemic.”

When test centres were rolled out across all counties, swabbers took up temporary positions to support the government in meeting the demands at the height of the pandemic, he said.

“They met these demands in challenging environments when there was enormous uncertainty as to the severity of the virus and very limited access to PPE. These workers put both themselves and their family members at risk to serve in the government response to the pandemic,” Mr Ginley added.