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Hospital funds increased


EDITORIAL

OUTRAGE at the cutbacks in the health service, in terms of the cap on staff replacements, proposals to slash wages for new nurses and capital expenditure cuts was mollified to some degree in Clare this week.

 

The reason is that it has emerged the 2013 budget for the Mid-West Hospital Group, which includes Limerick Regional, Limerick Maternity, Croom Orthopaedic, Ennis and Nenagh hospitals, in addition to St John’s, Limerick, has been increased, while other hospitals’ budgets have been decreased.

The 11.5% increase for Mid-West hospitals is, in fact, the biggest in the country, higher even than the 10% (€7m) increase for Mayo General Hospital in Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s own constituency.

Fianna Fáil is unhappy and quite sceptical about who got what, with the party claiming the distributing of funding has more to do with taking care of “key ministerial constituencies” than the needs of hospitals.

Suggestions of lobbying by ministers have been rejected by the HSE, while Minister of State for Housing and Planning, Jan O’Sullivan said the allocation for the Mid-West is “fully justified”.

The Mid-West’s allocation of  €237.5m, up from €213m in 2012, paves the way for the Health Service Executive (West) to review where the unexpected financial windfall can be spent. There will be no loosening of the purse strings. Individual hospitals cannot expect a bundle of euro to be thrown at them, however, as the budget was well exceeded in 2012 and prudence is essential.

The Mid-West has been under severe pressure for many years in respect of reduced health budgets and it is a shift in policy that has brought about some change in fortune.

The HSE has outlined how, for the first time, it is basing allocations on projected spend, rather than on historic budgets, with a view to ensuring sustainable budgets into the future. The organisation is seeking to rebalance budget allocations to provide hospitals with budgets that are achievable.

The HSE has tried to match spending by hospitals last year, less 3%, and to do that, funding had to be redistributed within the hospital and within the health service, according to the organisation’s chief executive Tony O’Brien. Without this, he added, every hospital would have had a 3.5% cut; no hospital had suffered that level of cut.

Among the key hospitals to suffer budget cuts are: St James’ in Dublin (-3.4% or €9m); Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Dublin (-2.8% or €3.5m) and Children’s University Hospital, Temple Street (-2% or €1.5m).

In addition to the Mid-West hospitals and Mayo General, others to fare well include Beaumont, Dublin (+8.4% or €18.5m) and Cork University Hospital, with a 5.4% increase.

Minister Jan O’Sullivan noted the case had been made for years that the Mid-West health service was underfunded to deal with the population, demographics and need of the region. She is satisfied the Health Minister and HSE have “recognised that and rectified the historical imbalance”.

With so much criticism about the health service on an ongoing basis, it is only right to acknowledge that Clare and the Mid-West has done comparatively well in the 2013 pay-outs. We won’t worry too much about the begrudgers.


Job gone but come back

YOUR job is gone today but come back tomorrow on lower pay. That, in essence, was the cruel manner in which seven young Clare-based psychiatric nurses were dealt with by the HSE last week.

It’s ironic that this aspect of the health service should rear its ugly head in a week our editorial column also features increased funding for Mid-West hospitals.

The seven nurses were let go last Thursday but were offered their jobs back the following day, on 80% of their previous pay, which is in line with the Government’s new policy on the issue. It’s a scenario that will be played out all over the country in the weeks and months ahead and it’s likely to be met with the same level of resistance as here.

Clare PNA secretary, Denis Meehan said, “They were rang individually on Friday and asked to come back to staff the unit but at 80%. In practice what they [HSE] did was sack them on Thursday morning and they asked them back the following day at 20% less.” None of the seven nurses were interested in taking the job on the lower salary.

He noted that if nurses are not prepared to take up posts on low pay, it would actually cost the HSE more in hiring agency staff. They are paid according to years experience and even the seven nurses let go last week would get a better pay rate through an agency.

The morale among Clare’s psychiatric nurses is at an all-time low given the uncertainties the cuts have raised in their area of expertise. Based on what Mr Meehan has been hearing, it’s easy to understand why so many nurses have had enough and are counting down to retirement, at the earliest opportunity.

If experienced nurses are talking of getting out, imagine how this is influencing those who are just starting out in the profession, which calls for huge commitment.

It’s difficult to gauge the HSE’s rationale on each of the seven cases last week and full circumstances surrounding the decision. Perhaps the HSE just decided not to give an explanation on a matter of considerable public interest.

The Clare Champion made enquires by way of phone and email to the HSE in order to throw some light on their side of the story but there was no response, never mind “no comment”.

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