The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, has rejected allegations of crisis in the health service following the announcement of the closure of 250 beds by the five Dublin teaching hospitals, writes Marie O'Halloran.
He said the word "crisis" had been used to describe the health service for the past five or six years. "Language is cheap," he said adding that the term was being used with "gay abandon".
He was defending his handling of the health service, as the Cabinet departed from its normal agenda for an all-day meeting about health. Mr Martin told the Dáil that he had been responsible for "record increases in health funding and in funding for acute hospitals across the country".
He also said the funding comparison made by the teaching hospitals between this year's allocation and last year's was "unfair", and there was a "need to dig deeper into the figures".
Labour's health spokeswoman, Ms Liz McManus, who made the allegation, asked "what does he regard as a crisis". The Wicklow TD said during health questions that "we are in a grave situation" and "patient care is being severely undermined by the savage reductions in service the hospitals are being forced to undertake".
Mr Martin said the original allocation to the Dublin teaching hospitals last year was about €795 million and this year's allocation was 9.6 per cent higher. He conceded that the original amount of funding for 2002 had increased during the year, but he said the outturn - the final amount - at the end of the year was higher, as it was every year. The teaching hospitals were comparing this year's allocation of funding with the total amount they had received by year-end and "this is not a fair comparison, in some respects", because last year "once-off expenditure" was given to the Dublin teaching hospitals.
Ms McManus questioned whether the minister had read the hospitals' statement that the actions "being forced on them by the Government will impact on the fabric of the service". She demanded to know how Mr Martin would explain to cancer and cardiac patients that the diagnosis and treatment of their condition would be delayed or denied. Mr Martin was adamant that cancer, renal and cardiac services had vastly improved and expanded in Dublin and other hospitals.
Later, questioned about whether there would be closures or reductions in maternity and Accident and Emergency services in the wake of media reports about the downgrading of some local hospitals, Mr Martin warned TDs not to "rush to judge by using phrases such as 'downgrading local hospitals' and 'downgrading local services'." They "should not create illusions about what those local services mean on a day-to-day basis".
He said he would bring proposals to Government when the task force on medical staffing had completed its report. It was established after the EU Working Time directive reduced the average weekly working hours of non-consultant hospital doctors.
Mr Martin insisted there was no question of the closure of any acute hospitals, but Mr Denis Naughten (FG, Longford-Roscommon) said morale was at an all-time low because of the "threatened downgrading" in maternity and A & E departments.
Dr Liam Twomey (Ind, Wexford) warned that there had to be a balance between local needs and "centres of excellence".