THE TRADE union Siptu has said more money will have to be provided to the Health Service Executive in the west as part of overall efforts to tackle a €91 million financial deficit in the region.
The union’s senior health organiser Paul Bell yesterday said cost-containment measures currently under discussion would not deal with the deficit in its totality.
Tomorrow is the deadline for the completion of talks which have been taking place at local level in different parts of the HSE’s western region – which runs from Limerick to Donegal – on cost-saving measures to be introduced.
These talks were agreed at a Labour Relations Commission hearing earlier this month to see if alternative ways could be found to securing savings in a manner that minimised the impact on employment and services.
HSE management had suggested that several hundred temporary staff could be let go or have their hours of work reduced and various hospitals and community facilities across the region in a bid to reduce the deficit. In addition it proposed further bed closures and reducing access to some services.
In Galway, for example, HSE management had proposed cutting nursing staff levels by 16 whole-time equivalents to be achieved by a reduction in hours of 50 per cent. There were also proposals to reduce temporary consultant staffing by 4.5 whole-time equivalents and to cease agency staff contracts for five radiation therapists in the cancer service.
At Letterkenny General Hospital, in Co Donegal, it was proposed to reduce the working hours of 94 temporary staff by eight hours per week. Management said that this would have resulted in the reduction of one intensive care bed and the closure of one theatre.
Mr Bell said yesterday it appeared progress was being made in local talks in some areas. However, he expressed concern that progress had been limited in other areas such as in the midwest.
In a statement issued after the previous Labour Relations Commission hearing in mid-August, management and unions said it had been agreed that “all options to reduce expenditure would be further jointly explored”.
These options would include “non-pay savings, reduced hours, career breaks, unpaid leave, flexibility in the reallocation of staff, and phasing out expenditure on agency staff where possible”.
The Sunday Business Postreported yesterday that unions and management at Galway University Hospitals were close to agreeing measures that would tackle the financial deficit in those particular hospitals without the loss of jobs. The report quoted hospital manager Dr David O'Keefe as saying that the 220 temporary hospitals posts were safe.
The Irish Timesrevealed earlier this month that a confidential consultants report commissioned by the HSE in the west had recommended that up to 1,000 temporary staff in the region could be let go or a hospital could be closed in a bid to tackle the financial deficit.