DOZENS OF beds will be closed at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital in the next two weeks in order to enable the hospital stay within budget this year, the annual conference of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation was told yesterday.
The union’s general secretary Liam Doran said these were in addition to more than 1,000 bed closures across the State already and would have a detrimental impact on patient services.
While he claimed that 70 beds were to close at Beaumont in the next week, the hospital said the number that would close was 52.
It admitted the closures were part of a number of measures being implemented to offset a €19 million cut in the hospital’s funding this year. It stressed its cancer, transplant and neurosurgery services would be protected from the cuts.
“The Jervis five-day ward, which comprises 33 beds, is being closed at the end of this week and a further 19 beds will be closed in the hospital in approximately two weeks time,” a spokesman said.
He added that the number of delayed discharge patients at the hospital had dropped from 140 last November to 90 now, freeing up another 50 beds.
Figures presented to the conference show that among the hospitals worst hit by bed closures to date are Sligo General, where 72 beds have also been closed, the Midlands Regional Hospital in Tullamore, where 86 are closed, and Merlin Park Hospital in Galway, where 70 beds are closed.
Anne McGowan, a nurse at Sligo General, said the bed closures at her hospital had had a knock-on effect on elective surgery and had led to an increase in the numbers of patients waiting on trolleys. Most wards were also working two to three staff down due to the recruitment ban.
Mr Doran said members of the organisation were not blind to the current economic realities but would resist cuts to frontline services. “It is hard for our members to understand as they gather here how we can allocate €22 billion to bail out a defunct bank . . . and not have the money to offer to the ordinary people of Ireland a decent, quality-assured and safe public health service.”
The organisation is recommending to its members that they reject the Croke Park pay deal. Members will be balloted over a three-week period, beginning next week. “We are accepting pay is not going to come back in 2010. What we cannot accept is that we would tie ourselves in to 6,000 job losses and 3,000 bed closures over the coming years,” he said.
“This may not be a time for conflict but it certainly isn’t a time for neglect of patients and staff who work on the front line”.
Mr Doran said 1,900 nursing and midwifery posts had already been lost as a result of the moratorium on staffing.
The union will put forward alternative ways of making savings at the conference today. Its plan will include proposals for greater use of generic drugs, ensuring admission of patients on the day of surgery becomes the norm and the introduction of a phased voluntary redundancy scheme for surplus management grades.
More than 300 delegates are attending the organisation’s three- day conference, which will be addressed tomorrow by Minister for Health Mary Harney.