Some 325 in-patient beds are planned for the greater Dublin area in the next two years - but the Eastern Regional Health Authority has funding for only 53 of them, a report submitted yesterday to the ERHA board reveals.
The ERHA estimates that people living in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow have about 800 beds available for planned procedures.
By June of 2003 it wants to add 325 in-patient beds and 10 day-care places. It also wants to provide an additional 600 hip replacement and other orthopaedic procedures annually.
By the end of this year it wants to have 158 of those beds in place.
"The Department of Health and Children has already allocated the ERHA £3 million which will be utilised to fund the opening of 53 of these beds plus a number of initiatives to alleviate pressure on A&E departments and improve patients' access to services," the report says.
If the plan is to be implemented, more funding will have to be made available, it says.
The proposals include 105 extra in-patient beds for Beaumont, 38 for the Mater, 31 for Tallaght, and 24 for St Michael's. An extra 49 beds will be contracted out in private hospitals. The Royal Hospital Donnybrook will get 12 extra places for chronically ill people under 65, and St Bricin's (Infirmary Road) 10 extra beds for ophthalmology.