Harney says hospitals not run effectively
The minister said the manner in which hospitals were currently run was neither effective nor efficient.
She also dismissed reports that the A&E unit in Letterkenny Hospital in Donegal was being closed down.
She said Letterkenny Hospital was no different from other hospitals in that it had to operate within budget: “The hospital has to use the resources available to it in the most flexible way possible. It cannot have staff on wards that are half full.”
Ms Harney also warned of tougher times ahead for the health service because of the economic recession.
“The reality is that hospitals have to organise their services in the best interests of patients and very often the manner in which hospital services are organised is not effective or efficient and certainly does not put the patients first,” she said.
The minister said savings could be achieved by changes in how hospital staff were allocated and by more day care surgery, so wards did not have to be staffed at weekends.
“There may be issues for staff in relation to that but that is the way the best hospitals are run.”
Meanwhile, the National Treatment Purchase Fund has criticised a newspaper report that claimed patients had been waiting between five and seven years for treatment.
The fund said that the patients had declined offers of treatment and had chosen to remain on the waiting list.
One patient has remained on Cork University Hospital’s waiting list for at least seven years, while the Mid Western Regional hospital in Limerick has three patients waiting for surgery at least five years.
The fund said the situation where a patient refused treatment raised the question as whether they should continue to be put on waiting lists.
“While it may difficult to understand why somebody in need of an operation would then turn it down, it is something that occurs in the public health system,” the fund said.