Patients face more delays as HSE plans budget cuts
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The Health Service Executive (HSE) yesterday admitted that it is considering a radical plan to curtail spending in a bid to "meet the challenge" of breaking even this year.
The move is a clear signal of the housekeeping squeeze which is set to be imposed in all HSE regions this year to avoid repeating the overspend of 2007.
Under the proposals, the emergency treatment room at the troubled Monaghan General Hospital would be shut down -- even though it was only opened in recent months, at a cost of €1m.
The closure will re-ignite fears in Monaghan that lives will be be put at risk as emergency care is shifted to Cavan General Hospital.
The menu of proposed cuts includes:
- Reducing non-emergency orthopaedic surgery by 25pc in Our Lady's Hospital Navan.
- Cutting non-emergency surgical in Louth County Hospital, abolishing on-call duties for staff and the introduction of a shorter working day.
- Slashing outpatient clinics in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda, holding no clinics on Fridays.
- Limiting non-emergency surgery to four days a week in the Cavan/Monaghan Hospital Group.
- Closing ten beds in Monaghan General Hospital.
- Taking Monaghan General Hospital off call, closing down the medical and treatment rooms.
The internal memo, produced after a top level meeting last week, also proposes setting up medical assessment units in the hospitals in Navan, Drogheda and Cavan by July, and funding more home care packages .
The medical assessment units would divert people away from overcrowded hospital accident and emergency departments and reduce the possibility of patients being admitted to hospital for tests.
The hospitals concerned are already struggling with waiting lists of public patients needing surgery.
There are more than 300 adults who are waiting between three months and a year in Louth County Hospital.
There are 144 patients in the surgery queue in Monaghan General Hospital.
A HSE spokesperson said: "This is a draft internal document. No decisions have been taken on reducing services in the north east.
" We are facing a challenging year and we are exploring how best to deliver services within budget.
"We should be in a position by mid-February to be more definitive about the services we will provide for the year."
The HSE has proposed building a major new hospital in the north east, but the location has yet to be announced and the timetable for construction remains vague.
Already, large numbers of patients in the north east are opting to be treated in overcrowded Dublin hospitals and this will exacerbate the pressure on the capital's infrastructure.
There has been a population surge in the north east, meanwhile, as more Dublin commuters moved to the region, compounding a difficult situation there.
