€146m slashed from hospital budget in six years

Over €146 million has been sucked out of the budget of University Hospital Galway (UHG) during six years of austerity that were characterised by waiting lists and cutbacks.

Figures released to Sinn Féin prove that the level of funding of UHG hasn’t fully recovered since 2008, when the city hospital’s budget was first slashed.

Connemara-based Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh has slammed the current and previous Governments for starving UHG of funding.

Data released to Sinn Féin health spokesperson Pearse Doherty by Ann Cosgrove, general manager of Galway University Hospitals, show that funding at UHG in 2008 was €274 million.

That was cut consistently to €271 million in 2009; to €247 million in 2010; to €242 million in 2011; and to €232 million in 2012. In 2013, the budgets began to increase but have not yet returned to 2008 levels.

In 2013 it received €253 million; it increased to €258 million in 2014; and this year it has received an allocation of €269 million, which is still over €5 million short of the 2008 budget.

Senator Ó Clochartaigh said that the cumulative amount that was sucked out of UHG since 2008 was more than €146m. The figure is calculated as if UHG hadn’t been cut over the past six years.

He pointed out that the reduced budget came during a period when outpatient waiting lists grew to over 30,000.

Senator Ó Clochartaigh said that the amount UHG was funded by in 2008 was probably too low, and it certainly isn’t enough now because staff are under increasing pressure with additional patients and more services offered.

“The waiting list figures for University Hospital Galway are scandalous and among the worst in the state. While these figures are truly shocking, it is little wonder as the staff at UHG have been consistently asked to do more with less. Figures from hospital management show that a cumulative amount of €146 million has been taken from the budget of UHG over the past six years by successive Governments.

“The results of such systematic underfunding are clear to see as over 1,000 people are waiting over a year for inpatient treatment while over 7,000 are on the outpatient waiting list for over a year. This revelation comes the same week as the psychiatric nurses working in the hospital have been forced to consider industrial action in order for HSE management to address their very real concerns about their unsafe working environment.”

He said the Government ‘spin-doctors’ maintain that the situation is improving but Senator Ó Clochartaigh said that’s not the reality on the ground.

“It is not good enough for Government Ministers up in Dublin to be congratulating each other for an economic recovery that has not reached Galway while our health service is bursting at the seams. The Minister for Health must answer to the people of Galway in relation to these figures and take immediate action to ensure that our hospital receives adequate funding and resources to tackle these waiting lists,” Senator Ó Clochartaigh added.