Clare health budget hit by €18.5m cut

CLARE patients face longer waiting times for surgical procedures, futher day bed closures and a reduction in community services following a €18.532 million cutback in the budget for local services, a nursing union has claimed.
The overall reduction of €95m in day-to-day current spending for health services in the Mid-West has been described as “catostrophic” by Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) representative,  Mary Fogarty, who warned it would be impossible to make a huge reduction in funding without adversely affecting services.
Ms Fogarty claimed the reduction would “devastate” health services at a time when health-workers are struggling to deal with the national recruitment embargo.
“It was a struggle to get an extra home help hour to help people stay out of hospitals and be treated in their own homes. The only way to reduce hospital stay is to build up primary and community care but that is also suffering a huge reduction.
“Taking €95 million out of heath services in the Mid-West is the equivalent of over half the entire budget for Limerick hospital. This cutback has to have a huge impact on services,” she said.
However, the Mid-West Health Service Executive interim regional director of operations, John Hennessy, cautioned that direct comparisons shouldn’t be made between the 2009 and 2010 budgets because it isn’t comparing like with like.
“The recent pay reductions mean that less funding is required for salaries in 2010 in hospitals and local health offices and there have been significant reductions in drug costs recently, which will be reflected in the 2010 budget,” he said.
According to the 2010 HSE West Service Plan, the overall budget for six acute hospitals, including Ennis, will be reduced from €264m in 2009 to €220.936m this year, down from a high of €275 million in 2008.
The Mid-Western Regional Hospital faces the biggest cut from €163.87m to €135.343m; Limerick Maternity’s funding will drop from €18.89m to €16.607m; Croom Orthopaedic is down from €12.1m to €9.99m with Nenagh hospital down from €22.12m to €18.932m. Funding for Ennis hospital drops from €24m to 20.7m while St John’s takes a €3.5m reduction from €23.571m.
There is also a dramatic reduction in the budget for the Clare Local Health Office, down €15.2m from the existing budget of €128.867m. There will also be cutbacks in Limerick Primary Continuing and Community Care down from €193.5m to €172.5m and Tipperary will fall from €139.898 to €123.741m.
Fine Gael Deputy Pat Breen claimed Clare patients are already facing a waiting time of over four hours in Limerick for accident and emergency services.
“Despite the improvement in efficiencies in recent years, a cut in budget will effectively mean a cut in services. I would be worried about the impact on services across the board, including the community where home-care packages are under threat,” he said.
John Hennessy pointed out acute hospital activity in 2010 would reflect the continuing shift from in-patient to day-case activity. “This will be achieved through a combination of continued reform in how health services are delivered through measures such as minimising length of stay in hospital, more day-case procedures and providing improved services in the community.
“2010 will continue to provide challenges to us in the delivery of services. The moratorium on the recruitment of particular staff grades and ongoing financial challenges will continue to present risks to our overall capacity to sustain our health services. The HSE remain committed, however, to stay focussed on making it easier for patients and clients to access quality services where and when needed,” he said.