HSE say it has no plans to close any more hospital beds

Date Published: {J}

By Dara Bradley

The head of Merlin Park hospital and University Hospital Galway has declared there are no plans to close any more beds, wards or reduce theatre activity, to claw back a budget overrun for 2011.

HSE West Clinical Director Dr David O’Keeffe, in an interview with the Sentinel, said Galway’s two public hospitals, GUH, would this year deliver on the level of service it committed to at the beginning of the year.

He acknowledged a budget deficit – which was about €8.7 million in July – but he stressed services would not be cut in order to bridge this gap.

Instead, Dr O’Keeffe said the hospitals and HSE West would “aggressively pursue” private consultants and the various health insurance companies that owe UHG and Merlin Park outstanding debts.

“We don’t have any current plans to reduce activity at the hospitals to year end,” he said.

Dr O’Keeffe added: “We are committed to delivering the level of service in the service plan by year end. And we have no plans to close any wards or to reduce any activities as a consequence of the financial situation of the hospitals, which has consistently improved over the last 18 months.”

He hinted that for the past year and a half GUH had begun to tackle a ‘historical’ budget deficit, which had built up over the years.

Dr O’Keeffe said the next phase of the hospitals’ attempt to reign in its budget for this year and break even was further “cost-containment” measures as well as “increasing our private fee collection”.

He said the hospital would engage with all the stakeholders to recoup any outstanding debt owed to the hospitals and vowed to “aggressively pursue . . . not just consultants but also insurance companies”. This process is already underway and is proving successful, he said.

Meanwhile, Dr O’Keeffe welcomed a new HSE report, Healthstat, which notes UHG’s performance in a wide range of areas of service delivery has improved.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentiinel.