10 signatures reached
To: Health care Assistants rights to the Hse, Private businesses and the health minister.
Equal rights, proper pay and national job discription for Health Care Assistants and carers
To treat health care Assistants properly as they make up the backbone of the front line staff in all settings, homecare, public hospitals, private hospitals, and private and public nursing residence , they also are supposed to be patient focused, the patient is priority.
There is no proper national job discription for carers /HCAs, so management exploit this, there is only 7 increments which is roughly €36,000 per annum before, tax, there is no higher position ie supervisory roles, or managerial roles, which is unfair as every other discipline have ie catering and porters,also not all HCAs want to change their career path, so should have a middle management and higher management roles made available to them. They were supposed to be trained to do more medical assessments ie observations, Blood pressures, and blood sugars etc to name a few, back in the year 2000.but we are behind the UK and other countries regarding this, they have licensed practical nurses, Nurses aid,or Nursing support staff.
The home carers also who save the country millions should also be taken in to proper consideration, their weekly carers allowance should not be mean tested as they look after their own family members, they should actually be paid more, as they save as said the country millions as if they had to bring in carers from agencies for eg they would have to pay higher rates. Both areas are being exploited and in this day in age they should be treated fairly.
There is no proper national job discription for carers /HCAs, so management exploit this, there is only 7 increments which is roughly €36,000 per annum before, tax, there is no higher position ie supervisory roles, or managerial roles, which is unfair as every other discipline have ie catering and porters,also not all HCAs want to change their career path, so should have a middle management and higher management roles made available to them. They were supposed to be trained to do more medical assessments ie observations, Blood pressures, and blood sugars etc to name a few, back in the year 2000.but we are behind the UK and other countries regarding this, they have licensed practical nurses, Nurses aid,or Nursing support staff.
The home carers also who save the country millions should also be taken in to proper consideration, their weekly carers allowance should not be mean tested as they look after their own family members, they should actually be paid more, as they save as said the country millions as if they had to bring in carers from agencies for eg they would have to pay higher rates. Both areas are being exploited and in this day in age they should be treated fairly.
Why is this important?
As I am both a health care assistant and help my partner with her parents who need full time care, she only gets €109 a week which is shambolic for all she does and saves the country like all other carers who look after their children, parents, and young adults with disabilities, they need more support as medication, treatment and other outgoings are very expensive and it is unrealistic to expect these people to live on such a small allowance.