I wish to brief the Minister on the worsening crisis at University College Hospital Galway because of the threatened closure of two wards and the laying off of 45 nurses. It must be borne in mind that these closures are on top of 110 bed closures five weeks earlier in the year. The hospital has had the greatest increase in waiting lists of any health board hospital. Between June 1997 and June 1998 the waiting lists increased from 2,079 to 2,891, an increase of 812 or 39 per cent.
When the Government came to power, a public representative from the constituency became Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children. At the time, there were 1,386 people on the waiting lists who, 12 months later, are still on the waiting list. There is now a waiting list to get on the waiting list. The closure of the surgical ward will now add another 800 to the waiting list before the end of the year.
Does the Minister realise the worry, chaos and hardship he is causing by allowing the wards to close and nurses to be laid off? I expect he will tell me in his prepared reply that it is the function of the management to stay within its budget but it is the duty and responsibility of the Minister to provide adequate funding to run the health board services. The acting chief executive officer maintains that the Western Health Board is £1 million short of a budget and that, if he had the money, the wards and theatres could be kept open and the nurses kept on. There is a legitimate case for the £1 million to be given to the Western Health Board. The Minister only gave it an increase this year of 1.5 per cent whereas inflation is running at 3 per cent. Had the board been allocated a budget in line with inflation, it would have received an additional £750,000.
Another extra cost on the health board this year was the cleaning costs attached to the refurbishment of the hospital, which were £300,000. This money, if returned to the health board, would keep the wards open. The Minister may make play of the 1996 Act which states that health boards should stay within their budgets. The Act was agreed by all parties. At that time, the Minister for Health provided money to clear a deficit of £3.8 million in the Western Health Board region.
There is nothing in law to stop the Minister introducing a Supplementary Estimate to deal with this problem. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform yesterday introduced such an Estimate of £81 million to deal with excess expenditure in his Department. There are several other precedents for Supplementary Estimates. The introduction of such to allow for a payment of £1 million to the Western Health Board, which the Minister short changed earlier this year, would restore some normality to the serious situation now developing at University College Hospital. I appeal to the Minister to seek that Supplementary Estimate so that his commitments to the health board can be met.