Sick children’s lives are being put at risk because health chiefs are shutting down hospital wards rather than cutting back on obscene wastage, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said today.
Mr Kenny accused Health Service Executive (HSE) chiefs of driving "daft" policies that will partially close the country’s main children’s hospital for much of the year.
Misplaced cost-cutting was targeting vital services at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin instead of inefficiencies in the running of the health service, he said.
The result will be the closure of an operation theatre from July to December, two theatres and 20 beds being shut down during July and August as well as serious cutbacks in outpatient services.
“I don’t believe for a moment that there are not areas within the HSE that should be a priority for a greater saving than this,” he told Taoiseach Brian Cowen in the Dáil.
The Opposition leader said the temporary closure of some services at Crumlin was creating stress for parents throughout the country.
“There seems to me to be a completely daft monetary policy in respect of hospitals in the HSE, when the first thing that happens is wards have to close, operations are cancelled, critically ill children’s lives are put at risk and all of that stress that goes along with that,” he said.
Mr Kenny said evidence given to him by some people working for the HSE revealed “absolutely obscene” wastage in some areas.
“Here you have a situation where a children’s hospital measures up in terms of efficiency, standards and quality and yet it is going to be \[partially] closed down for large sections of this year because of a budgetary overrun,” he said.
“We cannot stand by a position in 2009 where critically ill children are not able to be treated in a hospital that has the doctors, the staff, the facilities to do so.” The Fine Gael leader demanded to know was there any other area within the HSE where cutbacks could be made first.
Mr Cowen said there was no question of urgent and emergency cases not being dealt with at the Crumlin children’s hospital.
“The question of wards or beds being closed for the summer is a feature of our acute hospital system,” he said.
The Taoiseach said the hospital was delivering more treatment to patients than it was last year, while the Government was trying to improve efficiencies to free up more money for services.
The hospital’s budget had increased by about 40 per cent over the last five years although it dropped by about 3 per cent last year, he told the Dáil.
PA