A chara, – Minister for Health Leo Varadkar has committed to opening an extra 300 beds to try to cope with the expected rise in the numbers of patients waiting on trolleys in our emergency departments.
As trolley counts have been high during a mild September, he is right to be concerned.
I wonder if the fact that around 1,000 beds have been lost due to budget cuts would be relevant to this discussion? As trolley counts approached 700 at times last year, this solution would appear to be the sticking plaster variety.
He also tried to muddy the waters by adding that doctors see more patients in other countries than here in Ireland. It may be the opinion of the Minister and his department that the reason we have a recruitment crisis and are witnessing unprecedented numbers of young doctors emigrating is that we are not working them hard enough.
The reality is that we have an ageing population, funding levels for the health service as a whole are now at 2006 levels, hospital capacity has been reduced and funding to primary care has been cut, with around €400 million in reductions. Hours for homecare packages have been cut and public nursing home beds reduced.
I can reassure the Minister that of all the problems he is facing this winter, work-shy doctors are not one of them. – Yours, etc,
Dr SÉAMUS
McMENAMIN,
Navan,
Co Meath.