Ó Caoláin raises Hospitals CEOs’ warning with Health Minister

A local TD has stressed that the problems faced by the State's four largest hospitals due to successive health budget cuts are too urgent to wait for the next national service plan.

Health Minister James Reilly was asked by Sinn Féin health spokesperson Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD for his views on the much publicised letter from the CEOs of the Mater, St. James's, Tallaght and Crumlin children's hospitals, Dublin, stating that the health cuts are unsustainable and a threat to the safety and quality of patient services; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

In the Dáil last week Deputy Ó Caoláin asked if the Minister agreed it is a “seriously worrying development when the chief executive officers of four of the largest hospitals in the country write to the HSE to warn that the quality and safety of patient services in their hospitals is seriously threatened by the cuts imposed by his Government?

“These four large hospitals - the Mater hospital, St. James's Hospital, Tallaght hospital and Crumlin children's hospital - provide national services. As the responsible Minister, he has chosen not to respond, although the correspondence went to the HSE. I have not noted any response from the Minister in this regard. Why is that?”

The Minister said the issues raised by the hospitals in the letter will be considered in the context of the HSE plan for 2014. He said he wrote to the HSE on October 31, to confirm that the executive has until November 15 to submit its service plan. In that letter, he said also conveyed to the executive that his overriding priority is patient safety, with the next priority being to treat patients in as timely a fashion as possible.

Collective impact

Deputy Ó Caoláin responded: “The Minister stated that his overriding priority is patient safety and yet from my reading of the correspondence from the four CEOs, that is also their overriding priority but there seems to be such a gulf between the Minister's and their position.

'The Minister falls back on the unpublished national service plan 2014 and yet the CEOs are clearly indicating that the situation, which they seek to be addressed, is current and is a consequence of the collective impact of a succession of five budgets that have seen €206 million removed from their spending capacity. They stated that this short-sighted and random application of budgetary reductions is clearly likely to seriously damage the foundation of the system. That has to be of concern to each and every one of us.

'The CEOs are saying the cuts imposed by the Minister and the Government, coupled with demands for fewer staff while at the same time insisting on shorter waiting lists, is totally unsustainable. The Minister must have a better answer than what he just gave. It is not a pig in a poke situation. We cannot wait for the next national service plan and whatever further cuts it might outline for these hospitals.”