Hospital crisis - Patients the victims of cutbacks

THE five teaching hospitals in Dublin have decided to take 250 beds out of service in order to reduce costs.

The hospitals received an increase of less than 1% in their annual budgets while they are faced with a 7% increase in salaries, as well as a 10% rise in other costs. As a result, the budgets of those five hospitals have effectively been cut by €90m this year.

The cutbacks will involve the suspension of 14,000 medical and surgical procedures. There is little doubt that the latest announcement was timed to obtain optimum publicity and thus cause maximum embarrassment for the Government by highlighting the patently dishonest promises made by Fianna Fáil during the last general election campaign.