An orthopaedic unit at Our Lady's Hospital in Navan is to close for the month of December in an effort to save money, it was confirmed yesterday. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
The Health Service Executive said the unit, which performs elective surgery on patients requiring knee and hip operations, is to close due to budgetary constraints.
The unit is the latest to be hit in the current round of cutbacks being imposed by the HSE in an attempt to reduce its €230 million deficit.
The HSE said work performed by the unit was already ahead of service plan targets.
Fine Gael's Meath West TD Damien English claimed 200 patients would have their surgery cancelled as a result.
The HSE claimed only a small number of operations would have to be rescheduled.
"Staff at the unit have been offered annual leave during the closure or to move to Drogheda hospital as back-up staff," Mr English said. He added that the closure of the unit demolishes Government denials about current cuts not having an impact on patient care.
Minister for Health Mary Harney has insisted that the ban on recruitment and other cost-cutting measures imposed by the HSE would have no impact on patient care.
But already this week it was confirmed that admissions to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin, have been stopped due to funding problems.
In addition the HSE is to decide within days whether to close an orthopaedic unit or either of two geriatric units at Galway Regional Hospitals in an attempt to break even by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, a young man involved in a serious road crash just over two weeks ago has twice fallen out of his bed at Galway's University College Hospital, which cannot provide him with round-the-clock nursing care due to short-staffing.
His father told The Irish Times yesterday that his son, who sustained serious head injuries in the accident, was still a little disorientated, and as a result his consultant asked that he be given round-the-clock nursing supervision. However, hospital management said this could not be provided due to the HSE's embargo on recruitment and on the hiring of agency nurses.
He stressed that staff at the hospital were wonderful but management's hands were tied by the HSE directive. "We were even prepared to pay for an agency nurse to be brought in but it wasn't allowed," he said.
"This recruitment embargo is having a huge impact," he added.
He said that at present a care assistant was looking after his son at night time and his family was doing so from 8am to 10pm. "They are doing their best for us with the resources they have but they are limited," he said.
There are 45 nursing vacancies at the hospital.
Fine Gael's health spokesman Dr James Reilly said the story of this young man indicated that patients were being affected by the recruitment embargo.
He said patients were being affected not just in hospitals but also in the community, as he was aware of one case of a woman in her 90s whose home help service had been halved.