Cutbacks are confining some elderly patients to bed - INO

ICTU CONFERENCE: THE IRISH Nurses Organisation (INO) has said that some elderly patients are having to remain in bed all day as a result of health service cutbacks.

Addressing the biennial delegate conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) the president of the INO, Sheila Dickson, said that in other cases some elderly patients had to go back to bed in the afternoon as a result of the cuts.

She said that the delivery of quality patient care was being compromised by health service cutbacks and by the Government’s embargo on recruitment of staff.

INO deputy general secretary Dave Hughes said that there were now 581 hospital beds closed for various reasons.

He said that the number of patients waiting on trolleys in accident and emergency departments for a hospital bed had increased by 30 per cent in the 12 months to June 2009.

Meanwhile the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) criticised the Government’s plans for the development of co-located private hospitals as “one of the most regrettable decisions ever taken [in] fostering a two-tier health service”.

IMO director of industrial relations Finbarr Murphy told the conference that the decision on co-location solidified the system that enabled those who could afford to pay to access easily a range of private health services while those who could not were obliged to avail of a public system.

Mr Murphy said that it was “beyond ironic and morally indefensible that at a time when the Department of Health could find €400 million in tax relief for the developers of private hospitals that it could not find the money to keep open the operating theatres of the children’s hospital in Crumlin.’’

‘‘We have no issue with the establishment and operation of private hospitals. However, we object strongly to the Government policy which favours the development of private hospitals over public hospitals. We object strongly to a Government policy that commits hundreds of millions of euro in taxpayers’ money to the development of private hospitals at the expense of investing in our public hospitals.

“How ironic it is that at a time when our most profitable private institutions face nationalisation and further bailouts by taxpayers to the tune of tens of millions of euro and after a decade of economic boom, the legacy of our health service will be the development of a chain of private hospitals catering to those who need not depend on a systemically underfunded public health system,’’ he said.