The Mater Hospital in Dublin said yesterday that it needed at least an additional 100 beds to deal with its short-term needs.
Its chief executive, Mr Martin Cowley, said this would represent an increase of 18 per cent in the existing complement of 562 beds. The Mater had a bed occupancy rate of 97 per cent when international best practice suggested that this should be 85 per cent.
Speaking at celebrations to mark the foundation of the hospital, Mr Cowley said that at present there were 4,000 patients on waiting lists for treatment at the Mater.
The chairman of the board, Mr John Morgan, said the cutbacks which had had to be introduced to allow the hospital live within State funding allocations in recent years had resulted in significant reductions in the number of patients treated.
The hospital had overcome a cumulative three-year funding deficit of €18.4 million to deliver a near-breakeven scenario at the end of 2003.
However, he said, that financial turnaround had been "a bruising experience" for all at the hospital whose mission and ethos was centred on caring for the sick.
"In an era when the effectiveness of healthcare delivery is increasingly gauged solely in terms of financial norms, the challenge for the board is to find means of responding to political and financial pressures in ways which promote rather than compromise our mission and ethics," Mr Morgan said.
The turnaround had been achieved by a variety of cost-saving measures, including a reduction of 3,200 in the number of patient treatments provided, the temporary closure of up to 80 beds and reductions in the recruitment of temporary staff.
The Mater also published its first annual report and corporate plan since it was incorporated under the Companies Act. It said it was awaiting a suitable donor to allow it to perform the country's first lung transplant.
