Health cuts unveiled in regional plan

EOGHAN Mac CONNELL

REDUCED HOSPITAL activity on bank holiday weekends, cuts to respite care hours and 111 community nursing home bed closures feature in the Health Service Executive service plan for the Dublin Mid Leinster region, revealed yesterday.

The measures are designed to try to cope with a 4.6 per cent budget cut as well as 1,038 health staff retirements in the region under the public service exit arrangements.

Unveiling the 2012 regional service plan, HSE regional director of operations Gerry O’Dwyer admitted 2012 would be an extremely challenging year for health services in the region.

“We have a very serious challenge and we are working closely with the staff association to do more with less, that’s our agenda,” Mr O’Dwyer remarked.

The problems arising from retirements and the €125 million budget cut are compounded by an 8.5 per cent increase in population in the region since 2006. The number of people leaving private health insurance was also likely to add pressure on services, the health forum was told.

Mr O’Dwyer said nine local health offices were to be reconfigured to four areas. He spoke of “maximising procedures right throughout the system”.

In primary care, child health screening and BCG school immunisation will be challenging in 2012. Health promotion programmes, such as anti-smoking and breast-feeding campaigns, are to be reduced. The allocation of primary care services will be more selective and only provided to people who are fully eligible.

However, there will be some improvements in primary care, such as the planned out-of-hours GP service for Tallaght and Bray. The HSE also plans to commence the rollout of the newborn hearing screening programme in the region.

Disability services are to lose 535 nights of respite care and face a “small reduction” in day services.

There are expected to be challenges in meeting emerging needs, such as hospital discharges and in emergencies in disability services.

Meanwhile, the executive is looking for a 50 per cent reduction in agency staff and a 50 per cent reduction in primary care patient transport. It also wants to centralise the administration of the Nursing Home Support Scheme in the region.

Inpatient capacity for acute and long-stay mental health patients is also expected to diminish. Staff shortages at the Central Mental Hospital are likely to be compounded by retirements.

Outside the meeting, Abbeyleix and District Hospital Action Committee spokesman Gary O’Keeffe described the executive’s approach to community nursing homes as “nonsensical”.

While the bed closures are only due to take place with consultation, Mr O’Keeffe said the executive had failed to consult in any meaningful way.

He said there were “beds within an acute unit being misused or not used properly, and there are cost-neutral beds within community nursing units that aren’t being used”.

He insisted elderly patients who are being kept at great expense in Portlaoise hospital could avail of empty cost-neutral beds in Abbeyleix Community Nursing Unit.

Chairman of the regional forum, Labour councillor Denis O’Callaghan, began the meeting by slamming the executive’s centralising of medical card processing. He said he received a number of calls from councillors and although he contacted the executive, no response was forthcoming on the matter.

“This forum at the very outset had motions here tabled saying that it wouldn’t work,” he said.

He called “for the person in charge to be brought to the next meeting in Naas to explain the debacle”.

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