This statement is incorrect. As a doctor working in the Irish health system it is my experience that Irish nurses do not take bloods, cannulate patients or even give first doses of IV medications even if they have been on the relevant courses,it is done by junior doctors. If a porter is not available to bring a patient to theatre or to bring requests to the relevant departments then it is done by the junior doctor. The same applies if a phlebotomist or cardiac technician is similarly not available for whatever reason. I work approx 80 hours a week of which 25% of my time doing the above routine tasks ,40% of my time is spent on organising appointments/tests/chasing charts etc. The remainder of my working week is the clinical work I was trained for. Unlike others in the public system I do not want to work overtime. The 80 hours that I and other non-consultant doctors work provide basic medical cover in a Victorian health care system. This would not be so bad if the majority of my time was spent on clinical work.
Current HSE employee ratio is 49,000 management/administrative staff cater for 62,200 health workers. Of which less than 2000 are Consultants and approx 5000 non-consultant doctors. Quite a few departments such as radiology and pathology require little or no clerical support as they utilise “speech-to-text” software for reporting. One consultant requires one secretary ,one ward requires one ward clerk. I will leave to others to explain the 40,000+ managers and admin staff.
