Over 60,000 people have registered as part of the HSE’s recruitment drive

A huge response to the Covid-19 battle.

More than 60,000 people have registered online with the Health Service Executive (HSE) in a bid to be "on call for Ireland" as the fight against the Covid-19 coronavirus steps up. A shortened selection process has been underway since Friday (2o March), with the HSE conducting interviews and checking professional registration as they seek to meet a "changing, complex environment and a challenging task".

“We want to thank all who have been in contact to assist our health services in answering the call in such numbers through the 'Be on Call for Ireland' initiative," said Anne Marie Hoey, HSE National Director for Human Resources.

"The HSE are now analysing all the information from the registrations, and we ask for your continued patience. If you have registered, we may be in contact, please bear with us.”

Currently, the HSE is especially focused on recruiting healthcare professionals who are not providing care in any healthcare setting at present and are thus available to start work immediately. This specific group will be contacted first and interviews with doctors and nurses in this category have already commenced.

"Our priority is to build capacity to meet a demand that we are working to assess," notes an official HSE statement issued on Monday (23 March).

"We may not know where the jobs are so we cannot give this information yet. We are focussing on getting new staff 'job ready' so they can meet the demand as it arises."

The HSE is also mindful of a large number of registrations from a number of healthcare professionals currently working part-time in the health services, both public and private. In these cases, the HSE asks individuals to discuss with their manager how they may increase hours to improve capacity, with services expected to be in high demand in the weeks to come.

"We would remind all those who registered who are doctors, nurses, work in relevant medical laboratory areas or ambulance staff, but who are not currently working in health care to ensure that they have their phone at hand so that they can answer the call," notes the HSE statement.

"We will continue to capture all volunteer information and we continue to encourage all health professionals who are not already providing care in a public or private capacity to register their interest on www.hse.ie/oncall."