TRADE UNION Siptu has warned that a number of smaller hospitals may have to close entirely in the weeks ahead unless the Government provides supplementary funding for the health service.
It has expressed concern that significant parts of other hospitals may have to be shut down temporarily before the end of the year as a result a financial difficulties in the Health Service Executive.
Siptu acting health division organiser Paul Bell yesterday said the union believed the executive’s financial position had not improved over the summer and expressed particular concern over the future of hospitals in the west.
In the first six months of the year the executive recorded a deficit of over €200 million.
Mr Bell said he believed the executive’s failure to improve its financial position in July and August was responsible for the cancellation of a number of briefings planned at regional level with staff representatives to discuss the budgetary situation.
“It is my understanding that the transitional board management of the HSE will not meet until the 7th or 8th of September to consider the overall budgetary status of the organisation, despite the fact that the figures for the July and August period will confirm that the financial deficit has further deteriorated,” he said.
“It is feared that this situation will lead to the HSE transitional board of management insisting on even more excessive and draconian cuts in services than previously envisaged when the initial deficit figure released by the HSE to the health group of unions was running at €208 million.”
Mr Bell criticised HSE West for the sudden cancellation of a meeting tomorrow in Galway at which it was expected management would confirm budgetary plans for the last quarter of 2011.
He forecast that without contingency funding there would be temporary hospital closures in the west. HSE West, he said, had financial data for July and August and there was no excuse for delay. “It’s a disgrace that such an important meeting be cancelled at short notice without explanation, especially with so much at stake for the population of the west of Ireland, who rely on the public health service, not to mention the anxiety being experienced by the staff.”
He said the meeting’s cancellation and the executive’s failure to meet health unions in all regions “will expose patients to drastic reductions in services because it will provide no opportunity for our members to work out solutions to the challenges involved”.