Health boards told to sell land to pay for hospitals

Health debate: The Government has asked health boards to carry out audits of all their property holdings so that unused land can be identified and sold to pay for new hospitals, the Minister of State for Health, Mr Tim O'Malley, told the conference.

In addition, Mr O'Malley backed proposals advanced by the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, to reform the system of medical training by providing only post-graduate training for doctors.

Mr O'Malley described as "appalling" conditions in the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, Dublin, and said that the Government would sell part or all the land at the site to fund the construction of a new hospital. He said this would happen in the next few years.

Land assets should be converted into health assets, he said, suggesting land sales similar to the plan adopted at the Office of Public Works by the Minister of State for Finance, Mr Tom Parlon.

Mr O'Malley said: "I have been appalled to see the conditions in some of the mental health institutions while at the same time there might be 10 or 15 acres of very lucrative land surrounding the hospital not being utilised." He went on to say that it did not make any sense for people suffering from mental illness to be able to look out on big parklands from sub-standard bedrooms in old-fashioned buildings.

"We can make this work for mental health and other services. The State is sitting on substantial amounts of land, in particular in health. These assets contribute nothing to mental health facilities or services."

He said the time had come to implement the Government programme of reform for the health service. Besides saying "the policy is set", he did not address the controversy surrounding the Hanly report on medical staffing, which calls for the downgrading of many regional hospitals.

Mr O'Malley praised the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, for pursuing the ban on smoking in the workplace, which takes effect today, and said that 12,000 people would receive medical care this year under the Treatment Purchase Fund.

The Minister of State addressed medical training in the script of his speech which was distributed to journalists. While he did not read that part of the script to the conference, he said the sooner the system for training doctors was changed the better.

Mr O'Malley said that securing a string of A grades in the Leaving Certificate should not be the only way into medicine. He said he was certain that the PDs would support a proposal from the University of Limerick to develop a medical school to provide post-graduate training.