Speaking today at the launch of the HSE service plan for 2015, which outlines in detail the spending budget of just over €13 billion, the CEO of the HSE, Mr. Tony O'Brien, stated the funding will not be sufficient to fully address the increasing demand being placed on our hospital system, in particular the growing waiting lists for elective surgery. We have been here before, in terms of having no confidence in how the Government has formulated health budgets over the past three years, and we have been proven right on every occasion. Again we have a concern that the budget is being built on sand, in that it does not have sufficient funding in place to ensure the basic levels of service required in our public health system. This is not Deputy Billy Kelleher stating this, it is Mr. O'Brien, the head of the HSE, who will be directly charged with implementing the spending programmes on behalf of the Government.
In October, 7,000 people were on trolleys and 377 people were waiting on trolleys yesterday. More than 2,000 beds are closed, 56,000 people are on waiting lists for inpatient day care and 370,000 people are waiting for outpatient appointments.
Last year, a young man died in an emergency department in Limerick. He was admitted to hospital and marked as urgent, but was not seen for more than three hours. People on the front line have been consistently raising the issue of the pressures the public health system is under-----
