The head of the North Western Health Board has confirmed that 45 jobs will not be filled this year as part of a package of State-wide reductions to save €10 million.
The announcement was made when the health board met in Bundoran, Co Donegal, on Monday to discuss a cut in the board's allocation by €950,000.
"The underlying interest for everyone is that direct impact on individual patients and related services should be avoided if at all possible," the board's chief executive, Mr Pat Harvey, said.
As a result, the board took the decision to target areas of training, research and development, health promotion and administrative support ahead of direct patient services.
"I must warn however that these are simply short-term expedients and in the longer term, strategies to sustain reductions in these areas would be unwise and fundamentally flawed as a way forward," he said.
The reduction of 45 posts is made up as follows: management and administration, 32.5; nursing, two; paramedical, two; technical, one; and project support staff, seven. Noting that the Department of Health had asked the board not to fill 70 management and administrative posts, Mr Harvey said the balance of €200,000 would be made up of other savings.
Mr Harvey said it was important to note that the board had received significant increases in its allocation over recent years, adding that the growth in staff numbers during that time has been about 2,000 staff. Noting that the Action Plan was to effect a spending reduction of €950,000 in the current year, Mr Harvey said the situation in 2003 would be reviewed in the context of the 2003 Service Plan.
The chairman of the health board, Fine Gael councillor Mr Bernard McGuinness, said: "Whether we have been misled or not by the Government is irrelevant at this moment in time and I hope that in future, the Government recognises the responsible approach to the crisis taken by this board."
Meanwhile, a number of operations in the Mid Western Health Board area were cancelled as theatre nurses began a second day of work to rule.
In Galway, talks between the Western Health Board and the trade union, IMPACT, adjourned yesterday evening with an appeal from the trade union to postpone the deadline for 169 job lay-offs.
IMPACT's representative, Ms Emer O'Shea, said that the union had asked the board to defer the deadline of Friday September 27th, when the contracts are due to be terminated.