Fine Gael yesterday called on the Health Service Executive (HSE) to "come clean" on the reasons why north Dublin hospitals have been allocated no additional consultants under a new scheme. John Downesreports.
Under the "100 Plus" plan, announced on Thursday, Dublin's St Vincent's and St James's hospitals are each to get six new consultants. But neither the Mater nor Beaumont hospitals on the city's northside received any new allocation.
Fine Gael's deputy leader and Dublin North Central TD, Richard Bruton, said the northside of Dublin has higher waiting lists and longer waiting times than the rest of the country, and was being penalised in the face of chronic under-resourcing.
"Beaumont and the Mater keep figuring as the A&Es with the most patients on trolleys. However, they are also the least equipped hospitals to cope with the caseload. Are the hospitals which face the greatest difficulties now condemned to fall further behind?"
Mr Bruton added: "No one can argue with a policy that encourages hospitals to give greater priority to their accident and emergency workload ... Yet not a single new consultant post has gone to the northside."
"There must be a level playing field for deciding what represents success and failure."
The major hospitals on the southside are "much better equipped" to deal with A&E demands, he said.
"Not only do they have more vacant beds available but they have also developed specialist units that ensure much better management of patients."
Meanwhile, the Irish Patients' Association broadly welcomed the allocation of 60 extra consultants to 24 hospitals as part of the scheme, which aims to reward those hospitals which meet targets for reducing A&E waiting times.
But its spokesman, Stephen McMahon, expressed concern about any situation whereby someone who gets sick in Clontarf would take the Eastlink toll bridge across the Liffey in the expectation of better treatment in a southside hospital.
He added that a system of targeted investment was also needed to ensure the particular circumstances of a hospital were taken into account and sufficient resources allocated.
"The system is screaming out for a consultant-delivered service," he said. "But we have to have confidence in the method and system used ... I'm not sure this is always the case currently."
A spokesman for the HSE said the new "100 plus" plan was not about penalising any hospital, but rather was about rewarding those that met targets.
The HSE was "well aware" of the issues pertaining to those hospitals that had not received a consultant allocation, and would be working with those hospitals to address this. An additional 40 consultant posts are to be created under the scheme, and it was possible those hospitals would benefit from this allocation.