Hospital changes ‘not about money’

CHANGING the role of the country’s smaller hospitals in relation to emergency care and surgery was not about saving money, the Health Service Executive’s clinical lead in emergency medicine, Dr Una Geary, said yesterday.

Dr Geary, who was speaking at a HSE media briefing on the role of smaller hospitals, had been asked to address fears the HSE had an agenda to close or downgrade smaller hospitals.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “There is no evidence out there to suggest that changing a particular hospital’s designation or the types of patients who go in there actually saves money.