Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 May 2010
43 Deputy James Reilly asked the Minister for Health and Children if building work has commenced at any of the eight co-location sites regarding her plan to fast track 1,000 public beds through the co-location plan; if finance has been secured for any of the sites; her views on whether her co-location plan will become a reality; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20717/10]
View answerThe renewed programme for government re-affirms the Government's commitment to the current co-location programme. Preferred bidders have been selected for six co-location projects at Beaumont Hospital, Cork University Hospital, Limerick Regional Hospital, St. James's Hospital, Sligo Hospital and Waterford Regional Hospital. Project agreements have been signed for the projects in Beaumont, Cork, Limerick and St James's. Planning permission has been granted for the first three of these projects. Planning permission has been granted by the local authority for the St James's project but this has recently been appealed to An Bord Pleanála. Two other projects are at earlier stages of the procurement process.
The co-location programme is a complex public procurement process. It is a matter for each successful bidder to arrange its finance under the terms of the relevant project agreement. The co-location initiative, like other major projects, has to deal with the changed funding environment. The HSE is continuing to work with the successful bidders to provide whatever assistance it can to help them advance the projects.
I thank the Minister. It is timely that we should discuss the matter because, as my colleague, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan mentioned a few weeks ago, we are heading towards the fifth anniversary of the announcement of the plan, which was to fast track the 1,000 public beds. Not a single brick has been laid, a sod turned or a bed delivered. Will the Minister confirm whether finance has been secured for the projects and when construction will begin? Will she remind the House of the total cost to the State of tax reliefs for co-located hospitals, should they go ahead? The banking and finance situation has not been resolved. We have been waiting five years. As I indicated, this is yet another of those great promises on which there has been a failure to deliver. It would be as well for the Minister to put her hands up and advise us that she will find some other way of putting beds into the system because if this is a fast-track approach, God help Ireland.
A number of issues arise. I am aware Deputy Reilly is opposed to co-location but that view is not shared by all his party colleagues, as some of them have spoken to me about it.
When they are elected they can express an opinion.
We have had a credit crunch and it is difficult to get access to private finance for many projects. People are working extremely hard to advance the projects. There is great enthusiasm for them in various parts of the country to provide not just extra capacity by way of acute hospital beds but to allow acute hospitals to be able to reconfigure within themselves to have more private rooms and more infection control rooms. There is no other plan, nor are any resources available for major capital investment in public hospitals. That is a fact. This remains the only plan for major investment in major, acute public hospitals for the foreseeable future. Bankers and project promoters are working closely together. I hope we will be in a position to see the advancement of some of the projects shortly.
Five years later, there is no real prospect of that happening. I disagree fundamentally with the Minister's point that no other funding is available. There is gross wastage within the Health Service Executive and the health budget. If the funding was directed appropriately and managed properly the funding would be available. I remind the Minister that she promised the House previously that she would add beds to the system, instead of which we have lost beds.
The Minister referred to 33,000 fewer emergency admissions. Can she explain to the House how in the name of God she is going to reduce 33,000 emergency admissions in the health service this year? Is the Minister saying consultants in emergency medicine are admitting people needlessly? I do not think they nor any other doctor in the country would accept that.
Deputy Reilly represents every second vested interest that opposes any change in the health system proposed in this House. I already replied to a question on Beaumont Hospital. An extra 1,000 day-case patients were treated there in the first quarter of this year compared with last year. Reductions will be achieved by hospitals doing things differently, such as bringing in people on the same day for surgery. Approximately 3% of admissions from accident and emergency units are for diagnostics. It is a case of doing all of those things. We should not get obsessed about the number of beds. It is about the money following not just the patient but the patient's best health. That does not always mean that the patients should be in a hospital — far from it — it means the patient getting access to the appropriate treatment he or she needs wherever he or she requires it. Often that is in a community non-hospital environment.
Patients are not getting treated because the Minister is closing other facilities and burdening the major hospitals which cannot cope.
