MINISTER FOR Health James Reilly has said no hospitals will close but has not ruled out the temporary closure or reduction of some services.
Dr Reilly was addressing the Dáil Committee on Health, from which Fine Gael TD Denis Naughten resigned as chairman recently after voting against the Government on the removal of emergency services from Roscommon hospital. Fine Gael backbencher Jerry Buttimer is the new chairman.
Dr Reilly insisted he was fully committed to ensuring that smaller hospitals had a “strong and secure” future. “Let me be clear about one thing. While all hospitals, including the smaller ones, will have to take difficult decisions to stay on budget – including the temporary closure or reduction of some services – there will be no hospital closures, either as part of reconfiguration or as part of budgetary measures,” he said.
Dr Reilly said he would not stand over unsafe services. Changes that were being implemented, “though difficult”, must proceed to ensure the best possible outcome for patients, he said.
“The recent changes are not the death knell for smaller hospitals.”
He said he intended to prepare a framework for the development of smaller hospitals, which would result in their doing more work rather than less because certain procedures would transfer from larger to smaller services. “This will specify what services are transferring to them, from the larger hospitals. Too often we have focused on what we are taking away rather than what we can add to services there.”
The shortage of non-consultant hospital doctors was due to an inability to attract enough doctors to work in Irish hospitals, he said. A significant number of doctors from India and Pakistan were now arriving in the country. “It is envisaged that 30 of these doctors will be registered within a few weeks and a further 60 soon after.”
Fianna Fáil TD Charlie McConalogue stressed the importance of “retaining talent” and suggested medical students who were educated in Ireland should be required to work in the State for a period or reimburse some of their education costs.
“Maybe we need to look at putting some type of requirement on students when they’re going through the system that if we are going to pay for their education there’s an expectation on the other side in return for that education we’re providing that they would give a certain level of time and service to our health service once they’ve qualified. Or else put in place a system whereby reimbursement of the cost to the State of their education is part of that,” Mr McConalogue said.
Dr Reilly also said the nursing homes support scheme recommenced last month and more than 1,000 applications were approved.
