With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 81, 82 and 83 together.
I presume the Deputies are referring to the report of the Consultative Council on the General Hospital Services.
The Council has recommended that a number of existing county hospitals should be retained and developed to become General Hospitals and that the remaining county hospitals should have their rôle changed to what was described as Community Health Centres. This designation is somewhat misleading. The centres would continue to be hospitals and would provide inpatient services for normal maternity patients, for certain kinds of medical cases and for geriatric patients. In addition, they would have a wide range of well-developed consultant out-patient services, including radiology and pathology. Detailed recommendations were not made about the staffing of the Centres but it was proposed that general practitioners would have access to them and it is an important part of the plan that they would be visited regularly by consultants in different specialties from the nearest General or Regional Hospital.
The county hospitals which according to the recommendations of the Consultative Council might eventually become Community Health Centres are those at Bantry, Cashel, Clonmel, Dundalk, Ennis, Kilkenny, Longford, Mallow, Manorhamilton, Monaghan, Mullingar, Naas, Navan, Nenagh, Portlaoise, Roscommon and Wexford.
While I have accepted in principle the plan of reorganisation which has been drawn up by the Consultative Council, the detailed recommendations in relation to individual hospitals will have to be carefully examined in consultation with the various interests concerned before final decisions are made.