HSE defends cutting patients’ transport

THE HSE last night defended the decision to slash its budget for ferrying patients to hospitals for lifesaving treatment, saying that some people could make their own way to clinics.

The cuts are expected to affect thousands of ill people across the country.

The budget reduction of 25% from €36 million to €26m annually, which comes into effect next month, will vary from one health region to the next, according to Brian Gilroy, the HSE’s national director of integrated services.

However, 600 patients in the HSE West region have already suffered cutbacks to transport services for cancer and dialysis treatment.

“What we are putting in place is a policy to standardise access to services so the policy that’s just recently been approved will now be drawn up as local protocols in each of the four regions,” he said.

He claimed the cuts would have no impact in about half the HSE regions but accepted that some patients would be adversely affected.

“Some people in some parts of the country that would be getting transport today won’t be getting it going forward but where there is a medical need for it — where the person is immobile or whatever — there is no impact.”