The Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) has today warned that a €1bn cut in the HSE budegt would be a catastrophe for the health service.
The HSE has to devise a major cost-cutting plan that is likely to include bed closures, the lay-off of temporary staff and cuts in home help services in the face of a more than €1 billion shortfall in its finances this year.
The deficit could be more than €1.1 billion, the head of the HSE, Prof Brendan Drumm, has said.
Speaking today, Dave Hughes, deputy general secretary of the INO, said: “A one billion euro cutback in the health services would equate to the complete closure of four of the major Dublin Hospitals”.
The INO said although the cutbacks will not be achieved through such closures, the consequences of them, would be "catastrophic" and would see the closure of hospitals, the elimination of entire services and "draconian" cuts in intellectual disability services and mental health.
Mr Hughes sad a €1 billion cutback is "way beyond anything witnessed in Ireland before" and represented between 8,000 and 10,000 possible job losses.
Mr Hughes said that the HSE had indicated the requirement to cut €300 million from its costs to cope with the spiralling expense due to increasing unemployment, and that unions had been working with the HSE to contain costs while protecting patient care.
“That task was always going to be challenging and its purpose was to avoid industrial conflict. A programme of €1 billion of cuts will blow any possible accord out of the water,” he said.
Mr Hughes concluded that the only alternative to the cutbacks was for Government to recognise the health service budget "could not comprehend the unforeseen increase in medical card expenditure combined with the decrease in contributions from the health levy which had caused the current problem".
Yesterday, after a special meeting of the HSE board, Prof Drumm indicated that addressing the deficit may affect patient services.
“I think at this point in time it would be a very brave person that would say, in the face of a challenge of this size, that there won’t be an impact on services,” he said.
Already the HSE was implementing measures to make savings of €530 million this year. These measures included reducing overtime, converting seven-day hospital wards to five-day ones, converting inpatient to day-case surgery, and cutting travel and other expenses.
But now it says an extra €500 million in savings has to be made mainly due to the State’s worsening economic position. Some €400 million of this is accounted for by the reduced income from the health levy paid by workers and the extra medical cards which will have to be given to those who are unemployed.
Some of the remainder will be needed to cover the cost of greater numbers of consultants than had been expected opting to take up new higher-paying contracts. About 85 per cent of consultants have switched over, it said.