A REDUCTION of up to 25 per cent in construction costs should allow the Health Service Executive (HSE) to deliver the same number of projects as it had originally hoped for this year despite a cut in its capital budget, the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has said.
She told reporters in Dublin yesterday that the HSE’s capital programme for this year was now being finalised and although its capital budget had been cut when the budget was announced in October she was hopeful in the current economic climate that more projects could be delivered for less money.
In October it was announced that capital spending for the health service had been cut by 25 per cent this year to €540 million. The HSE’s share of this – some €465 million – was down 22 per cent on its capital allocation for 2008.
Asked yesterday if the capital plan would be targeted in the Government’s current drive to save €2 billion, she said she was not in a position to give any assurances.
However, she said that although there was a reduction in the budget for health capital spending this year, she believed the reductions now in the costs of projects – which she said was of the order of 20-25 per cent – would allow the health service to “deliver the same number of projects for less money”.
In a letter to the chairman of the HSE board, Liam Downey, last month, Ms Harney also referred to the reduced building costs. She said she understood the executive would revise its draft capital plan for 2009 “to take account of revised construction costs which are apparent from a number of recent tenders”.
Ms Harney was speaking yesterday at St Luke’s Hospital in Rathgar at the official opening of four new linear accelerators at a cost of more than €15 million. The new machines, two of which replace old appliances, will allow 400 additional cancer patients to undergo radiotherapy treatment each year, thus reducing waiting times.
The state-of-the-art machines will allow patients receive more complex and precise treatment, making better outcomes likely.
Padraic White, chairman of the hospital board, said radiotherapy would continue to be provided at St Luke’s for the next six years, that is until the end of 2014.
Plans were announced by Ms Harney in 2005 to eventually close the hospital and to provide two large radiation oncology centres instead alongside St James’s and Beaumont hospitals in Dublin.
Mr White said the hospital was continuing “to develop proposals for the future use of the St Luke’s facilities for the benefit of cancer patients and their families after 2014 when radiation is planned to cease”.
He said the board looked forward to discussing these proposals with the Minister and the HSE in due course.
Ms Harney said the plan to integrate cancer care for surgery, radiation and medical oncology in a number of large centres was based on the advice of experts.
She also said work would begin shortly on additional radiotherapy capacity at St James’s and Beaumont hospitals and it would be ready in 2010. Additional capacity on top of that would also be required in due course, she said, as the number of women getting cancer was projected to increase by about 95 per cent by 2030 and the number of men getting it was expected to rise by about 120 per cent over the same period.
Ms Harney said 50 per cent of all of these patients would require radiotherapy.