asked the Minister for Health the number of voluntary health insurance patients who were admitted to hospitals for less than four days during the year ended 31st March, 1972.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - VHI Hospital Patients.
9.
It has not been possible for the Voluntary Health Insurance Board to provide this information at short notice.
However, they have assessed the situation on a sampling basis which revealed that approximately 23 per cent of all claims, during the last financial year of the board which ended on 29th February, 1972 would appear to relate to hospital stays of under four days. When applied to the total number of claims for the year, this would indicate a total of approximately, 9,000 claims for such short stays.
The vast majority of such admissions was for active in-patient treatment and the balance related mainly to acute cases where, for example, a coronary attack or acute appendicitis was suspected but did not materialise.
The board have indicated that there has been no increase, during the past ten years, in the percentage of short stay cases.
In view of the fact that the Voluntary Health Board are not able to provide those figures how can they make these claims? The figures given are based only on sampling. This question has been raised by me in the Dáil on several occasions and it is therefore wrong to say the board were given short notice. The Minister should see that the board would look into this aspect so that they could consider providing outpatient benefits and thus lessen the number of patient days in hospitals.
The sampling survey can be quite adequate. The vast majority of these claims relate to in-patient treatment and the others to acute cases of coronary ailments and appendicitis.
Would the Minister have them look at this aspect——
I would have to be satisfied that the sampling was incorrect or inadequate.
The Minister does not know on what the sampling was based.