More than 200 jobs cuts are expected to be announced at Tallaght Hospital next week. The planned layoffs, which will be presented to the hospital board on Wednesday, are part of a rationalisation plan to bring the hospital within budget for the coming year.
Hospital sources say it will be a "devastating" blow and will add to the low morale among staff who have been concerned about their jobs for months. When the hospital's management team presents the 1999 service plan to the board it is expected to state that the redundancies, involving people on temporary contracts, part-timers and some full-time staff, are necessary if the hospital is to stay within budget. The board has already criticised its allocation of £64 million, saying it is not enough to run a new hospital of its size.
Meanwhile, hospital staff received a letter from the president of the hospital board, Archbishop Walton Empey, yesterday saying he "shared the sense of shock" at the news of the resignation of chief executive Dr David McCutcheon. He also praised the board for overcoming "obstacles" that had come in its way.
Under the new accountability legislation the hospital board must produce a service plan for the year outlining how its allocation from the Department of Health will be spent. The Deloitte & Touche report into the running of the hospital, ordered by the Minister for Health Mr Cowen, identified 120 posts in the hospital which were unapproved. However, the delay in taking cost-cutting measures, causing further overruns in wages, has meant that even more people will be let go. Some of those involved were taken on specially for the transfer and the opening of the hospital.
"The staff have been very upset at the way things have been handled," said a source close to the board. "There is a danger that upset could turn to anger. Dr McCutcheon was not the only one put in a difficult position. The Department of Health is still not willing to admit that their method of funding is not proper and £64 million is nowhere near enough to run this hospital in 1999. The implications of that will become apparent with the board meeting. The board must approve a service plan which will take out whatever number of staff is necessary for the allocation. That could be 200 and initially it will be people who are not permanent, but there may not be enough people in that category."
There was "absolutely no way", he said, that the board would use the money from the sale of the city-centre hospital sites as collateral for a loan, or for the budget deficit. They were charitable funds, controlled by the hospital societies and were to be used only for "new and enhanced services". He said the hospital car park generated an income of £500,000 a year and this source of income and others would be used to repay the loan.
In his letter Archbishop Empey said Dr McCutcheon had shown himself to be "a man of principle, vision, courage and skill".
"It is a huge task to bring three hospitals together, each with its own proud tradition of care for patients."
The board of the hospital, he said, had also worked very well. "I want to pay tribute for the way it has surmounted the many obstacles that have comes its way. The dedication of its members is of the highest order as they grappled with the many problems that were not of their making. The board has my full confidence."
A spokesman for the Tallaght Hospital Action Group said last night that it planned to stage a sitin at the Department of Health today. Spokesman Mr Richie O'Reilly said it was protesting over a lack of resources in the children's hospital. "We will stay there until the Minister for Health talks to us," he said.