The Government has delivered on less than half of the additional acute hospital beds it promised two years ago, according to official figures for the period up to June this year.
A total of 709 additional beds were pledged by the Government in 2001, but as of June of this year only 303 extra beds were available for the treatment of patients.
In addition, it has emerged that public patients are taking the brunt of recent hospital bed closures. Only 11 of the 184 beds closed in Dublin area hospitals for financial reasons last week were private beds.
In its 2001 health strategy the Government promised to provide 3,000 more acute beds by 2011, a commitment which it reiterated in its 2002 programme for government.
The Government had already announced the provision of 709 of these beds in 2001 and subsequently provided for their funding.
However, figures collected by the Department of Health reveal that the average number of beds available (taking into account the effect of temporary closures for whatever reason) had only risen from 12,004 in 2001 to 12,307 in the first six months of this year.
Figures from the Eastern Regional Health Authority show that in the Dublin hospitals last week, Tallaght had closed 12 public beds and no private; Beaumont had closed 46 public beds and no private; the Mater had closed 45 public beds and no private; James Connolly had closed 32 public beds and no private; and Crumlin children's hospital had closed 28 public beds and six private.
Each of these hospitals has significant numbers of private beds. The closures have been concentrated on public beds. Hospitals have an incentive to keep private beds open since they receive payments from insurers for their treatment of private patients, while treatment of public patients eats into their tight budgets.
Yet private payments cover only half the cost of private care, which means that private patients have continued to receive subsidised, fast-track access to public hospitals while public patients have borne the brunt of the cutbacks.
Before these recent closures, private patients were given privileged access to 20 per cent of inpatient-beds and 33 per cent of day beds nationally, even if there were public patients with greater relative need.
The 2001 Health Strategy proposed that all new acute beds be designated solely for public patient care since it was they who faced unacceptably long waiting times. The closure of public beds while private beds remain open can only have widened the gap between waiting times for public and private patients.