Health service staff in Mayo have been rocked by this week’s announcement that €1 billion cuts will have to be made this year.
There will be job losses, ward closures and a reduction in beds at Mayo General Hospital as a result of the cutbacks in the health service.
That’s according to Colm Keaveney, SIPTU branch organiser with some responsibility for health, and Galway Labour party county councillor.
The Irish Nurses’ Organisation has also painted a bleak picture with the prediction that there will be a complete closure of four of the major Dublin hospitals as a result of the impending cuts.
According to the INO: “The scale of a €1 billion cutback is way beyond anything witnessed in Ireland before and in terms of jobs, it represents between 8,000 and 10,000 possible job losses.”
Mr Keaveney, a member of the HSE West forum, further added that this was a “milestone of shame” for local politicians in Fianna Fáil to be associated with these cuts. “Those who can’t afford to pay will continue to be affected,” he told the Mayo Advertiser. “Public health is so embedded in our community, we are surrounded by our health through A&E, WestDoc, and the ambulance service, one significant initiative such as this will have devastating effects on the real and ordinary people, not the people with money in their back pockets,” he added.
If you can’t afford to pay you will be sacrificed, is the stark warning from Mr Keaveney, who has urged the Mayo public to contact their local politicians and tell them they will not be voting for them again if they don’t act immediately to stop these cuts.
Increases in unemployment have led to an unforeseen increase in medical card expenditure by the health service but Dave Hughes, deputy general secretary of the INO, has lambasted the Government for not meeting these increases with a rise in health expenditure. Instead the government are looking for a €1 billion reduction in spending while at the same time allocating additional funding to the Department of Social, Family and Community Affairs to meet increased social welfare payments.
Noreen Mullion, INO representative in Mayo, agreed that cutbacks were inevitable in Mayo, but no specifics have yet been furnished to the nurses’ organisation. “As far as the INO are concerned it is a catastrophe,” said Ms Muldoon. “Cutbacks are not acceptable in our health service. The government have bailed out the banks to the tune of €7 billion but cutting back ordinary people by €1 billion is not acceptable,” she told the Advertiser.
The nurses’ representative warned that previous holders of private insurance policies, who now find themselves in the dole queues, will be depending on the public health service and as a result funding should be increased and not cut.
Staff at Mayo general hospital are in a state of shock, SIPTU representative Seamus Burke told the Advertiser. While there are “no hard facts” available yet as to how Mayo services will be affected, a meeting between hospital manager Mr Tony Canavan and union representatives next Thursday should reveal more.
It was revealed in January that hospital budgets in the west are to be cut by €30m. Now €5.1 million cuts to community services will be topped up by additional cuts of €2.7 million which will lead to the closure of wards in St Mary’s and the closure of houses in Aras Attracta, according to Mr Burke. “This is the last thing managers want to do but the scale of the cuts leaves them with little option,” he added.
A “terrible, terrible” situation now exists within the health service, with economists telling union officials that they have never seen the likes of it before. Ireland, which recently enjoyed one of the brightest economies in Europe, is now being described as a “basket case” with it costing our Government three times as much as the Danish to borrow for day to day spending.
We have gone from “hero to zero” overnight, added Mr Burke.
