Health Minister accused of hiding behind HSE to avoid freeze fall out

A PATIENTS’ support group has accused Health Minister Mary Harney of hiding behind the Health Service Executive in a bid to avoid the fall out of the authority’s cost saving measures.

Patients Together spokeswoman Janette Byrne said the stringent spending controls were having a knock-on effect on patient care. “Patients are not complaining loudly because they feel nobody gives a damnanymore and that the minister has gone into hiding behind the HSE,” she said.

“People are contacting me to complain about the health service but they are not as willing to speak out any more.”

The freeze on recruitment has also led to an increased delay in medical investigations.

“People are being told that their appointments have been cancelled and they will have a longer wait,” she said. As secretarial staff were not being replaced when they went on leave, or became ill, there were delays in processing medical reports. There was concern for patient safety in some out-patient clinics, Ms Byrne said, as hospitals were operating with reduced nursing staff.

“It really is affecting all areas of patient care because of the domino effect,” she said.

Members of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) are very frustrated and worried but are reluctant to speak out.

INO deputy general secretary Dave Hughes said nurses and midwives were genuinely worried about patient care issues. “There is a lot of concern because the situation is so unpredictable. Nurses have no idea from one shift to another which area is going to be short-staffed.”

The HSE said the budget over-run was currently running at €200 million — 1.43% of the authority’s overall budget of €14 billion.

It was continuing to carefully monitor the impact “cost containment” measures were having and ensuring that they would not impact on service targets. In the meantime, it would ensure that everyone who needed urgent treatment would get it.

But the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said the HSE’s justification for closing the entire orthopaedic department in Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan, Co Meath, in December was dishonest.

The IHCA said it was not true that only six patients would suffer. In normal circumstances consultants would be booking patients over the over the next number of weeks and the average throughput for the unit in a three-week period was about 150 patients.

The IHCA said the cost to the State of having those patients, whose treatment will be delayed in December, operated under the National Treatment Purchase Fund, would be about €1m. “That hardly constitutes value for money,” said Donal Duffy, assistant secretary general, IHCA.

Fine Gael’s health spokesman Dr James Reilly said there were 100 more patients on trolleys in hospitals around the country in the first 10 days of this month compared with the same period last year. “This increase in trolley numbers, as the busy winter season approaches, combined with HSE health cutbacks meant a grim time ahead for Irish people misfortunate enough to fall ill,” he said.