Madam, - The recent statement by Maureen Browne on behalf of the ERHA makes upsetting reading.
Ms Browne states that the ERHA has made sufficient funds available to the Dublin teaching hospitals to perform last year's planned work. This morning there are 25 patients waiting in Beaumont Hospital's Accident and Emergency department for admission. This surely is not part of the plan - and if it is, serious questions should be asked about the ERHA's plans.
Ms Browne further states that many patients in Dublin hospitals are referred from the provinces for services that are available in the patient's own region. As a consultant in Beaumont hospital for the past five years I have never come across such a patient. Patients are referred to Dublin by consultant colleagues in the provincial hospitals simply because they believe they do not have the necessary facilities in their region to provide the necessary level of multidisciplinary care which the patient needs.
It seems incredible, but there are many health boards in this State that do not have access to such basic specialist services as a nephrologist, dermatolgoist, urologist or indeed rheumatologist.
The ERHA has not yet explained where the 7 per cent increase in spending which it has received from the Department of Health and Children has been spent when the Dublin Hospitals have received less than a 1 per cent increase in funding. While Beaumont plans to close 90 beds this summer there are in effect a further 90 beds closed to acute admissions because of the recent refusal of the ERHA to buy beds from private nursing homes.
The sad fact is that hospital administrators are happy to see hospital beds occupied by patients waiting to go to nursing homes because they are relatively cheap to keep, certainly much less costly than patients having surgery, dialysis or cancer treatments.
In these economic times the sole focus is on keeping within budget rather than providing a service. If these cuts go ahead they will result in the effective closure of one quarter of Beaumont's bed complement. A 10 per cent shortfall in hospital funding is likely to result in a 25 per cent reduction in bed capacity. It seems absolute madness.
We have become used to 20 to 25 patients waiting in casualty overnight. I fear we will have to get used to 50 or 60 patients waiting on trolleys each evening. - Yours, etc.,
PETER J. CONLON,
FRCPI, FACP,
Consultant Physician,
Beaumont Hospital,
Dublin 9.