New agreement aims to train and employ healthcare workers in the north west

A new partnership between the HSE, ATU and University of Ulster has a key aim of providing training and employment in healthcare locally in the north west. 

Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris was in the ATU campus on Letterkenny, where he signed a memorandum of understanding on the new partnership.

The Minister spoke about how health and education were two sectors that transcended borders and politics. He also praised management at the various educational institutions in the region for their journey of collaboration to date.

And the minister said it was his belief that such collaborations played another important role; they contribute to peace on the island of Ireland.

He told those gathered in the Letterkenny campus: “I am so excited to see that we are going to take another big step in building on the collaboration between what was Letterkenny IT, and Ulster University Magee, Donegal ETB and the North West Regional College.

“You can have cancer patients from Donegal getting treatment in Altnagelvin, you can have very sick  babies from Belfast getting life saving operations in Crumlin. No-one asks them about their politics. They pull together because it makes sense.

“When it comes to education here in the north west, we don’t hear too much about politics. We don’t hear too much about the political vacuum. We just get on with it. We pull together in a common sense way to meet the needs of the people.

“I am from a generation that is more familiar with Paris and Berlin than Derry and Belfast.

If we seriously want to have a shared island we have got to get to know each other, and what better way to get to know each other than through education.”

The memorandum of understanding will ensure that the health service has access to graduates from educational institutions in the north west. And it will ensure that students can avail of work placements within the healthcare sector. 

This applies not only to frontline healthcare workers but also to those in less visible positions such as IT, clerical, transport and more. 

He added: “The health service is one of the largest employers in the country. And people who are working in it will need to reskill and upskill. This was not something that could be done locally before but this memorandum of understanding will provide those opportunities.”

Dermot Monaghan is Chief Officer for the Community Healthcare region which covers Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan and Monaghan. He spoke about how people had re-evaluated their work life balance during the Covid-19 pandemic, and this in turn led to new challenges in the healthcare sector.

He also spoke about the challenges caused by people from the region having to move away for training,and that many of them did not move back.

Mr Monaghan said that coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, a colleague, Virginia Reid, gave a presentation about problems being faced in recruiting staff. 

“She showed the volume of people we have from Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim if only we could keep them,” said Mr Monaghan.

This presentation was the first step in a journey which led to detailed and fruitful conversations with ATU President Dr Orla Flynn and her colleagues, and eventually, to the memorandum of understanding. 

Providing training locally was identified as key to meeting the needs of the sector while providing a better work life balance for employees. 

CEO of the Saolta Hospital Group Tony Canavan said that achieving better outcomes for patients was at the core of the partnership. He said the memorandum of understanding will ensure that the best staff, training and support are available in Letterkenny University Hospital and across the region.