President Kennedy once said “Don’t ask what your country can do for you but, what can you do for your country” The same goes for the Alliance of Health Care Assistants in Ireland (AHCAI).
We are doing the following in consultation with you:
Working on a two-year healthcare apprenticeship training program lead by Griffith College. This course will produce a cohort of HCAs with a higher level of knowledge for the healthcare sector, competency in a wide range of clinical skills, the possibility of career progression in this discipline. Once the training program has started, we will begin to work on seeking regulation for Healthcare Assistants.
These will be the first steps to having your discipline regarded as a profession. The criteria for using the title profession is having:
- A set standard of education and training to competently carry out the tasks of the discipline.
- A national code of ethics and scope of practice.
- Membership of a body to represent and protect the interests of the profession and safeguard the public interest.
Currently the AHCAI is working on the first two points and while we cannot call ourselves a professional organisation yet, we are working to protect your interests and those of the public. We are working to have your discipline recognised and respected alongside other healthcare disciplines. We are working on a career path for those who have chosen this discipline as their career.
What you need to do is:
- We need you to join the AHCAI because to have a strong voice we need numbers. With 100 members the Government will not listen to us. With 2 or 3,000 members they must listen to us.
- We need you to offer to work on our Council.
- We need you to be be willing to represent AHCAI in your county.
- We need you to recruit, even if you are in this discipline for years and have no hope of change think of the young people coming up behind you.
- Make contact with us, let us know what your current situation is and how you would like it changed.
- Share with us your ideas and hopes for this discipline.
- Take some of our Continuous Professional Development (CPD) courses and receive certificates of course completion for your portfolio.
We are a voluntary organisation; all our Directors and executive members are volunteers. We don’t sell anything to HCAs. We hope to run the organisation on the membership fees because this gives us the freedom to speak freely as opposed to being beholden to bodies providing grants.
We formed a not-for-profit company in November 2015 and a registered charity since May 2019. We are working solely for you the HCA and your discipline. We need your support in the form of membership and willingness to participate on our Council and we need a representative in each county in the Republic.
Please share this information with your HCA colleagues