The doctor: The Government-established National Treatment Purchase Fund should be immediately abolished and its budget redirected into acute hospitals, a clinical director of Dublin's St James's Hospital said yesterday.
Dr Patrick Plunkett said the fund, which has a budget of €31 million this year, was "truly farcical", and it was inappropriate to continue with it when the money could be used to ease the budgetary difficulties of the Dublin Academic Teaching Hospitals, which announced plans to close 250 beds yesterday.
The money could be used to prevent beds closing or to fund nursing-home beds for the 499 patients who were "blocking" acute hospital beds across all Dublin hospitals at the end of last month, he said.
The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, was being "hung out to dry" by his Government colleagues on the issue.
"Collective Cabinet responsibility has decided the health service is not going to be funded as the population demands but they are not prepared to say that publicly," he added.
The bed closures, he said, would worsen the ongoing overcrowding in accident and emergency, where he works. "It won't cut down the number of emergency patients attending. There will be more patients on trolleys waiting for beds. It will be more uncomfortable for patients and staff."
There were up to 11 patients awaiting beds in A&E in St James's yesterday morning, but there have been times when this figure has been as high as 40. A return to those levels looked increasingly likely, he said.Staff morale was also likely to drop as a result of the cutbacks and it was probable, he said, that doctors and nurses with no family ties would seek work abroad. ... Eithne Donnellan
The patient: Ms Sarah O'Hara (71) spent three weeks in bed over Christmas "because I couldn't put my foot down on the floor".
Her right leg has been unable to take any weight since the effective collapse of her knee. She "urgently" needs a knee replacement and was given an appointment at St Vincent's hospital for December 3rd next, to get on a waiting list for the procedure. Her local GP, Dr John O'Keeffe, wrote to the hospital urging an earlier appointment and she will now see Mr Bill Quinlan, consultant orthopaedic surgeon there, this morning. She has been waiting since November.
"So long as I get this appointment now, that's the main thing. But the cutbacks will affect me. I suppose now I'll have to wait even longer. I know there are people worse off than me. It's them I feel really sorry for, because I have family who help me, who do everything really."
She takes painkillers to sleep because, she says "the pain is dreadful".
"I used to do a bit of cleaning around the house but I can't now. I can do a bit of delph but I can't walk. I have a stick to get around the house."
She is hoping to have a stair-lift installed and has applied for a grant.Her brother-in-law picks her up to bring her to Mass, her only outing of the week from her Donnybrook home.
Kitty Holland