We are witnessing the serious and growing damage being done by Government cutbacks to our hospital services. Yesterday, the Mater hospital announced the closure of 115 beds. Today it has emerged that this hospital will be forced to reduce patient admissions by 3,200 this year. The level of planned activity in St. Vincent's Hospital will be reduced by 20% this year. University College Hospital in Galway will be forced to reduce activity by 7,500 fewer treatments this year. St. James's Hospital is already facing a shortfall of €20 million. Beaumont Hospital is threatening to reduce treatment for cancer and dialysis patients.
Patient care is now suffering an unprecedented assault from the Government. The year 2003 will see reduced hospital activity while demand is growing for hospital services. Waiting lists are not being reduced and even seriously ill cancer patients are being forced to wait up to four months for treatment.
This crisis can be traced directly back to the abject failure by the Minister for Health and Children to focus investment where it is needed most. While he tries to hide behind the health boards and blame them for the crisis, he holds ultimate responsibility for the chaotic situation that has been allowed to develop. Health boards are bloated by an ever-growing number of administrators. As recently as today, the Southern Health Board is justifying a new management post while at the same time cutbacks are being made in hospital services in that region. Hospital ward closures, nurses laid off and operating facilities left idle are the hallmarks of this Minister's stewardship.
There is a new anomaly introduced into the health service. The Minister is funding private hospitals in Ireland and Britain under the treatment purchase fund for patients who are generally less in need but who have been waiting a long time, while more serious but shorter-term patients are left waiting because of cutbacks in public hospitals. Now the closed wards will be used for less urgent cases under this fund.
What he intends to do about the mess he has created is impossible to fathom so I welcome this opportunity to ask. The Minister for Health and Children is so swamped by reports and recommendations from review groups, committees and working groups that he is suffering a paralysis which extends to an inability to tell this House and this Deputy how many such reports and groups have come into existence since Fianna Fáil took office in 1997 and how much they have cost the long-suffering taxpayer. At the beginning of February I sought this information by way of a parliamentary question in the name of Deputy Costello but I did not get it. I sought it again by way of another parliamentary question and to this day I am still waiting. This is in direct contravention of the rules of this House and I demand that the Minister hand over this information immediately.
He also promised that the major reports on reforms in the health service would be published in February and then in March. When will these reports be published? They have been extensively leaked but those of us who depend on the health service have a right to know what the Government is going to do to face up to the challenge of meeting our needs on the basis of equality, excellence and value for money.
