Vol. 574 No. 5
143 Mr. M. Higgins asked the Minister for Health and Children his views on the findings of the recent mid-term review of the national development plan regarding the health services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27554/03]
The recently published mid-term evaluation of the NDP recommended a reduction in the health capital allocation for acute hospitals for 2004. However, that recommendation was based on several misconceptions. In particular, the report suggests that the expansions of bed capacity should be conditional on full utilisation of existing capacity. In that context, reference is made to 270 beds being closed over the year 2002. That amounts to a very small percentage of bed capacity. More generally, it is unrealistic to expect that the acute hospital system can operate in an optimal manner at anywhere near 100% utilisation. While it may be tempting to think that, ideally, all beds in all hospitals should be occupied at all times, acute hospitals offering an emergency service are subject to random and potentially significant fluctuations in demand for admissions. An optimal rate of bed capacity must be low enough to avoid unresponsiveness in the face of sudden and unanticipated peaks in demand.
The report correctly notes that 20% of beds in public hospitals are designated as private or semi-private. However, the report goes on to suggest that the public health system could immediately gain an additional 20% of capacity by the redesignation of those beds. That ignores the fact that the majority of such beds are occupied by emergency admissions, and a re-designation of beds occupied by such patients would not have any effect in freeing beds.
