THE BUDGETS of Dublin’s five main teaching hospitals have been cut by almost €160 million this year, new figures show.
The data, provided by the Health Service Executive (HSE), shows the largest hospital in the State, St James’s, has had its budgetary allocation from the HSE cut by €37.4 million, while Beaumont Hospital has had its allocation reduced by some €36.5 million.
Tallaght hospital, which has been at the centre of controversy in recent days over leaving thousands of GP referral letters going back to 2002 unopened and almost 58,000 X-rays unreported by consultant radiologists, has had its annual budget cut by €30.3 million.
The budget of the Mater hospital has been reduced by €28.7 million while the budget of St Vincent’s hospital has been slashed by €26 million.
The HSE said it acknowledged the situation was challenging “with reduced budgets right across the health sector”, but it pointed out that hospitals required less money this year to pay staff as a result of the public sector pay cuts.
However, the reductions in hospital budgets cannot be fully accounted for by pay cuts alone.
The HSE said it would be expecting hospitals to cope with fewer resources by treating more patients on a day-case basis, which is less costly, and by reducing the length of patient stays in hospitals once admitted.
It is expected that the reductions in hospital budgets will also lead to bed closures and some service reductions. The HSE’s chief executive, Prof Brendan Drumm, has already indicated that an extra 1,100 acute hospital beds will be closed this year.
Each of the hospitals is now working out plans to live within its reduced budgetary allocations this year.
Meanwhile, Crumlin children’s hospital, which was at the centre of controversy last year over its closure of wards and theatres when its budget was reduced, will have to cope with a further reduction of €14.5 million in its budget in 2010, the figures show.
The budgets of the three Dublin maternity hospitals – the Rotunda, the Coombe and the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street – have been cut by some €19.6 million. This is despite the fact that they have to deal with increasing numbers of births each year.
Information previously released by the HSE indicated that €13.5 million was to be cut from the budget of Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown this year, while a total of €142 million was being cut from the overall budget for acute hospitals in the HSE West region, which stretches from Donegal to Limerick.