MINISTER FOR Health Mary Harney acknowledged in the Dáil that there were budgetary concerns about the elective surgery undertaken at Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan.
Surgery procedures at the hospital were closed in the wake of concerns about the outcome of a number of operations.
Ms Harney said that “all decisions regarding the location of services will be taken with patient safety as the priority”. However, pressed by Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly, she said that “regarding elective surgery financial pressure points exist in that hospital as in other regions of the country”.
Dr Reilly said the Minister’s comments showed the closure of surgery at the Navan hospital “is all about money and not patient safety”.
He said 1,800 elective surgeries were performed in Navan every year and there was no capacity within Dublin and the northeast region to take on those cases, resulting in longer waiting lists.
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