A golden opportunity to provide much-needed services for the mentally handicapped has been missed, according to Mr Gerry Ryan, the general secretary of the National Association for the Mentally Handicapped of Ireland.
In yesterday's budget £12 million was allocated for this area, of which £5 million was capital funding for 1998. It will provide some 300 new day places and 250 new residential places. But Mr Ryan said that £25 million was needed to provide 1,700 places.
He said there were 1,400 people on waiting lists for residential care and more than 300 mentally handicapped people who are resident in psychiatric hospital "living in old buildings from Victorian times which are totally inappropriate". Their pre-budget submission requested an additional 500 residential places.
"We understand that everything cannot be done in a year but it does seem that a golden opportunity has been missed in a year when we would have expected much more. It makes me fearful for the future," said Mr Ryan.
Meanwhile, the Irish Medical Organisation said it was regrettable that the Government had increased accident and emergency charges from £12 to £20 for self-referral. The charge applies to those going to casualty without a letter from their GP.
The IMO president, Dr Neil Brennan, said it was clear the hope was that this would assist in reducing the number of inappropriate attendances and more appropriate use of the general practitioner service. It should also help to ensure that emergency services are available to patients who genuinely required treatment in casualty. "However, a full review of the hospital system is urgently needed and the IMO has asked the Minister for Health to set up a working group in this regard," he said. The Irish Patient's Association also expressed its disappointment at the price increase. "It is a double form of taxation really," Mr Stephen McMahon said.
He welcomed proposals to "manage" waiting lists and concentrate more on waiting times rather than how many were on the list. However, he asked when the value for money audit of the health services, proposed by the Progressive Democrats in their general election manifesto, was going to be carried out.
The IMO chief executive, Mr George McNeice, said health boards should be provided with "rolling budgets, covering several years, to allow for strategic planning in the service." The IMO believes there should be more specific targeting and justification for health service funding decisions and full consultation with the profession and patient support groups in advance. The organisation broadly welcomed the increased funding being provided for the service in 1998.
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association expressed "major disappointment" at the additional £4 million announced for the waiting list initiative. The IHCA general secretary, Mr Finbarr Fitpatrick, said the target of a 12month waiting time for adults and six months for children was laudable but "the money won't achieve that". "It simply isn't good enough to face the new year with over 10,000 adults on waiting lists for 12 months or longer and an estimated 2,500 children waiting endlessly for treatment. Despite the affluence far too many people continue to remain on waiting lists for a virtual eternity," he said.