With at least two health boards planning to cut back on planned surgery, five major Dublin hospitals fear they could face a shortfall of €50 million in financing for this year.
Health boards across the State are exceeding their budgets for 2002 because of costs associated with the winter vomiting virus, high drug costs and other factors.
Measures to cope with the overrun include restricting locum cover and limiting the use of agency nurses as well as restrictions on planned surgery in some cases.
The Western Health Board plans to temporarily close some wards and theatres during the summer, cut back on elective procedures and maximise staff leave in an attempt to address a budget overrun of €13 million. All new developments at University College Hospital, Galway, have been deferred until December and funding is to be diverted from community services to the acute services to help tackle the budgetary situation.
Mr Colm Keaveney, of SIPTU in Galway, was very concerned with how management was going to deal with the budget overrun and said that the cost-cutting measures being put in place ranged from reducing heat and electricity costs to cutting out tea bags for staff on the wards.
However, he warned that the efficiency measures fell far short of the budget overrun and said he was aware that a Plan B existed which would effectively mean extensive closure of wards and the possibility of redundancies.
The North-Eastern Health Board was €3.9 million over budget for the first three months of the year. Elective (planned) surgery in acute hospitals in the region has been running at a higher level than in the board's service plan and will be reduced to bring it back in line with that plan.
Five major teaching hospitals in Dublin - Tallaght, Beaumont, St James's, St Vincent's and the Mater - fear that their funding for the year could be as much as €50 million below what they need.
They are currently in negotiation with the Eastern Regional Health Authority on the issue. Hospitals in Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare are not given annual budgets by the ERHA.
Instead, the authority negotiates to buy services from them, and these negotiations are still taking place.
In the meantime, they are receiving "core" funding equal to the amounts they received last year.
It is understood that the hospitals are looking at ways of bringing their costs back to last year's levels.
This could involve reducing the use of agency nurses and reducing the amount of overtime worked by hospital doctors.
Other budget overruns are: Southern Health Board, €4.67 million at the end of April; North-Western Health Board, €2.4 million by the end of March; Mid-Western Health Board, €2.18 million by the end of April; South-Eastern Health Board, €4.6 million at the end of April; Midland Health Board, €0.6 million at the end of March; the three health boards in Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare, €3.3 million at the end of May.