€750m in healthcare cuts to hit the most vulnerable

THE old, the sick and the vulnerable will bear the brunt of HSE plans to cut €750 million from a creaking health system.

Despite claims from Health Minister James Reilly that the move means funds will be more effectively targeted, the HSE’s national service plan has sparked outrage among patient advocates over the impact it will have on care.

Among the €750m worth of cutback measures, which mean €2.5 billion has been slashed from the system since January 2010, are:

* The closure of between 555 and 898 public nursing home beds as a result of agency and overtime cuts, retirements, and facility failures to meet new infrastructure standards. The HSE claims the move will focus care on those in most need, with some elderly people receiving cheaper home help packages.

* A 50% cut in last year’s “unsustainable” €217m agency worker cost. Ireland would be hit with a €30m EU fine if that level of expenditure was repeated. However, the recruitment embargo forcing management to use agency workers remains in place.

* Home help hours to fall by 500,000, and there will be a 3.7% funding cut to disability services, with “unavoidable” reductions in day, residential and respite care.

* Hospital budgets to be cut by between 4% and 8%.

* No additional funding for cancer services, despite a projected 3% increase in cases. Introduction of colorectal screening delayed until later in the year.

* 3,200 staff — half of whom are nurses — to retire under exit schemes by the end of February. The workforce has fallen 9,000 since 2007, partially to cut large, non-frontline worker levels.

A nine-month waiting time ceiling for elective hospital procedures will also be implemented.

Among the more positive measures is an increased focus on same-day facility procedures, and €1m to speed up autism service waiting times, while €15m will be available to extend free GP care under the long-term illness scheme, and €35m will be invested in mental health.

Reacting to the cutbacks, Irish Patients Association chairman Stephen Mc-Mahon said large-scale staff retirement was at the centre of patient concerns as services will be affected.

He was speaking after HSE chief executive Cathal Magee admitted the cuts would result in “an inevitable and unavoidable reduction in services”.

Spokesman for Age Action Ireland, Eamon Timmins, added that “the loss of so many public beds and the scale of the cuts in the home help service provided by the HSE will undoubtedly be felt by the sickest of older people”.