Health services in west face €104m cuts

HEALTH services in the west face cuts totalling €104 million this year.

The HSE West region stretches from Limerick, Clare and north Tipperary to Co Donegal.

Outlining the cuts, the regional director for HSE West, John Hennessy, said the service faces the additional challenge of carrying a €22m shortfall from 2010 into this year.

In spite of the cutbacks, the HSE West is projecting that it will deliver increased services in day case treatments, emergency department & cases and to inpatients and outpatients in 2011.

The cut of €104m represents a 5% cut on the total budget of €1.99 billion.

The plan states: “The financial constraints in 2011 and the continuing public sector recruitment moratorium will challenge our ability to recruit certain categories of staff — significant flexibility in relation to reconfiguration and redeployment will be needed.”

The plan also states the continuing junior doctor “recruitment difficulties in many of our hospitals will pose challenges in the delivery of our acute services.”

The plan points out that “delivery on cost reduction and service restructuring programme is crucial for 2011 in order to maintain services at current levels with reduced resources”.

Mr Hennessy said the HSE West will achieve €38.8m in savings through cost containment measures.

These include a saving of €14.3m in procurement and contracts management, €7.8m in reducing discretionary spend along with €4.6m in logistics and inventory management.

Mr Hennessy also confirmed that €3m is to be saved in laboratory services, agency services and rent/lease renewal.

However, he said under the measures, a further €9m — included in the €38.8m — is to be saved at non-service impacting initiatives to be identified.

Mr Hennessy said the pay reductions through the moratorium will achieve a further €19.2m in savings.

The service is to also achieve savings of €16.2m in net once offs, €6.6m as part of strategic priorities realignment and €4.6m in legal retraction.

Outlining the cutbacks on the hospitals in the mid-west, the figures show that Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick is facing cuts of €17m with its budget this year at €131m.

The figures show that Limerick Maternity Hospital is to reduce by €2m to €15.4m, with budgets for Ennis General Hospital reducing by €840,000 to €19.6m and Nenagh General by €800,000 to €17.7m.

Mr Hennessy said that the HSE is aiming to deliver 172,300 day case treatments this year compared to 162,742 in 2010; 146,300 in-patients compared to 140,952 in 2010, 320,500 emergency department & presentations compared to 301,294 last year and outpatient attendances totalling 688,700 compared to 656,846 last year.