HSE cost-cutting could see ICU staff levels drop

INTENSIVE CARE staffing levels at one of the country’s largest children’s hospitals are being targeted as part of the drastic Health Service Executive (HSE) cost-cutting demands, the Irish Examiner has learned.

Nursing staff and management at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin have warned that HSE plans to reduce costs next year could result in the non-replacement of nursing staff at the facility’s intensive care unit (ICU).

And while there is a real fear other parts of the hospital will also be forced to reduce costs, concerns have emerged over the potential impact on the intensive care unit, with Crumlin’s director of nursing warning that the situation poses “significant risks” to patients.

The latest board minutes from the major Dublin children’s hospital show that despite long-term concerns over the consequences of slashing costs at Crumlin, the hospital is still considering options to “curtail activity in 2009”.

And following the cost containment plans already imposed on the facility this year, staff at Crumlin have voiced their fears that any 2009 cost cutting measures have the potential to cause severe damage to the hospital and its patients.

“If the curtailment of staff is not managed in a planned way by reducing activity then significant risks will be introduced,” warned the Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital board minutes.

The September board minutes continued that due to ongoing financial constraints across the system, “the ability to sustain activity at historical levels is compromised”, with plans being developed “which will require the hospital to curtail activity in 2009”.

And among the major clinical risks posed by these cutback plans, the board minutes noted, are the non-replacement of staff in “critical care areas” such as the ICU; an increased number of patients forced onto waiting lists and patients suffering from delayed diagnoses.

“Crumlin has clearly already made a major effort to reduce its costs, and it is essential that the appropriate staffing levels in intensive care should be continued,” said Labour health spokes-person Jan O Sullivan.

“ICU has to be seen as a priority, there are very ill people there and we can’t have inflexible cost cutting plans that don’t take account of that.

“What all of this shows is the harsh effects of cutbacks, and the reality of what it means to vulnerable patients,” she added.