Health: Hospital consultants have strongly disagreed with the suggestion in an ESRI report published yesterday that the 3,000 extra acute hospital beds promised in the national health strategy may not be necessary.
The report said it was difficult to justify committing public money to building new beds when one in five in public hospitals are currently designated private or semi-private.
"These beds are subsidised by the State to a level of around 50 per cent. The public health system could immediately gain an additional 20 per cent of capacity by the redesignation of these beds," it said.
The secretary general of the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association, Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, said every available statistic, both national and international, verified the need for extra acute hospital beds in the State. "We have the lowest ratio of acute hospital beds per thousand population in the OECD," he said.
"The major problem in our acute hospitals continues to be one of capacity. The provision of extra beds is an essential element of providing this extra capacity. Should the Government heed the ESRI report, it would be a killer blow to the development of a modern acute hospital service capable of meeting patient needs."
As reported in The Irish Times on Wednesday, the ESRI report said the opening of closed beds should take priority over "new build".
It noted that funding problems had resulted in 270 beds being closed in 2002 and that large numbers of beds were closed at various times over the past few years due to staff shortages, particularly nursing shortages. In addition, a "substantial" number of beds closed in Dublin hospitals earlier this year due to funding deficits, it said.
Routine bed closures for holiday periods should also be reviewed, it said, with a view to increasing efficiency, access and throughput. "A hospital bed is an expensive commodity, even when empty."
However, it acknowledged there are probably a number of very specialised areas such as intensive care where bed capacity is "a very serious problem" and these may need to be reviewed.
The president of the Irish Medical Organisation, Dr Joe Barry, said if the report was implying there were enough beds in the system already, he disagreed.
Mr Liam Doran, general secretary of the Irish Nurses' Organisation, said he was puzzled by the ESRI's stance on the provision of extra beds saying every report on the health service acknowledged the need for them.
The report, he added, seemed not to take account of the fact that all beds in public hospitals, whether public or private, were constantly in demand.
The Department of Health last night reiterated its commitment to provide the 3,000 extra beds promised in its health strategy.