Private security cost in six HSE hospitals tops €2m in 2010

Private security in six HSE hospitals cost over €2m in 2010 and almost €900,000 for the first six months of 2011.

Topping the list was Cork University Hospital, where security costs were €825,282 for 2010, a rise of more than €100,000 on 2009.

CUH security cost five times more than University Hospital Galway and almost €200,000 more than Dublin’s Connolly Hospital.

Surprisingly, security costs at the State’s high-security Central Mental Hospital were very low and came to just €45,317 in 2010.

The full costs for 2010 and for January to June 2011 were:

* Cork University Hospital — €825,282 and €312,670.

* Ennis General Hospital — €90,538 and €15,059.

* Central Mental Hospital — €45,317 and €21,319.

* Connolly Hospital — €643,097 and €318,754.

* University Hospital Galway — €147,926 and €65,921.

* Merlin Park Hospital — €288,810 and €143,180.

The total amount was €2,040,970 for 2010 and €876,903 for the first six months of 2011.

The HSE said CUH figures include Cork University Maternity Hospital which is on the same campus.

A spokesperson said a large proportion of the expenditure is attributed to baby monitor alarms. St Mary’s Orthopaedic Hospital and Erinville Hospital are also part of Cork University Hospital Group, and their security costs are included.

Security was ramped up at maternity hospitals in Cork 12 years ago after two abductions took place within two years of one another.

Two babies were snatched from Erinville Hospital in separate incidents in 2000 and 2002, after which management increased its manpower, extended the areas covered by CCTV and made improvements to its tagging system.

The figures do not take into consideration the costs of one-to-one security at particular hospitals. One man has been under 24-hour guard at Ennis General Hospital at a cost of €1,000 a day for over two- and-a-half years and a woman who later died in CUH was under 24-hour security care for three years.

Cllr Pádraig Conneely, chairperson of the HSE West’s regional health forum, has previously called for an urgent review of the matter. “Hospitals are not high-security jails, why is there a need for such a security presence? Why must the hospitals bring in outside security when they have their own internal system?”

He said any rowdiness is a matter for gardaí and the hospital’s own security staff are always on hand.

“The hospitals are alive at night with doctors, nurses and porters. It is a mystery to me what all this additional security is doing.”