Revealed–the Government's best-kept secret

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Wednesday May 07, 2008 10:39 by Marie O'Connor - Health Services Action Group marie.thereseoconnor at gmail dot com

- the elimination of over 40 public hospitals and their replacement by private for profit firms

Public hospitals around the country scheduled to close under current Government plans have been named in the run up to a major health rally in Monaghan on Saturday, May 10th. These closures will lead to an American-style health system where access to medical treatment, including hospital emergency care, depends on ability to pay, warned Marie O’Connor Health Services Action Group PRO. If Monaghan General closes, HSE will press on to terminate over 40 other public hospitals, said Monaghan Community Alliance Chairperson Peadar McMahon. ‘Many are already marked DNR –– do not resuscitate.’ Speakers at the Monaghan rally include Joe Higgins of the Campaign for a Real Public Health Service, former MEP Patricia McKenna, Dr Illona Duffy, Sinn Féin Health Spokesperson and local TD, Caoimhghín O'Caoláin and Peadar McMahon, Chairperson of the Monaghan Community Alliance.

Community groups have named hospitals on the Government’s hit list ahead of a major rally in Monaghan on Saturday, May 10th. Monaghan Community Alliance Chairperson Peadar McMahon says if Monaghan loses its hospital, other hospital closures will follow ‘as night follows day’. ‘As OECD confirmed last week, the North-East is the pilot for the Government’s National Hospital Plan––the elimination of over 40 acute inpatient facilities.

‘This is a dummy run for public hospital closures in the rest of the country.’

‘If the HSE succeeds in closing Monaghan General Hospital to in-patients, they will press on, without delay, to terminate over 40 other public inpatient hospitals. Many, like those in Naas, Navan, Nenagh, Croom, Cashel and Clonmel are already marked DNR –– do not resuscitate.’

Services are being cut in Monaghan General Hospital against the background of appalling shortfalls in primary care in the region and of deepening cuts to hospital services’, he continued. ‘Despite the dearth of GPs, despite the overcrowding in Cavan and Drogheda Hospitals, the HSE steamrolls on, in the teeth of medical opposition, oblivious to patient safety.’

Marie O’Connor PRO of the Health Services Action Group says these hospital closures will lead to an American-style health system ‘where access to medical treatment, including hospital emergency care, depends on ability to pay’. ‘Small private hospitals are being given incentives to trade in patients while public hospitals of a similar size are being forced to shut their doors.’

‘But replacing publicly-funded services with pay-at-reception private clinics will be a catastrophe’, she warned, ‘not only for the less well off, but for those who hold private health insurance.’

The Government, she says, seems determined to ‘replicate the discredited health policies of the British Labour Party that have destroyed the NHS in England’. ‘In both countries, patients are being turned into disease entities so that private firms can turn a profit.’

Confirmed speakers at the Monaghan rally include Joe Higgins of the Campaign for a Real Public Health Service, former MEP Patricia McKenna, Fine Gael Health Spokesperson, Dr James O'Reilly, Sinn Féin Health Spokesperson and local TD, Caoimhghín O'Caoláin and Peadar McMahon, Chairperson of the Monaghan Community Alliance.

ENDS

Notes for editors
An OECD report published last week confirmed Government plans to 'modernise’ the health services will be implemented over the next six years. This is a plan that, according to a report on bed capacity done by PA Consulting for the HSE, will take nearly 5 000 public patient beds out of the system. Ireland already has one of the lowest levels of hospital beds per head of population in the European Union.

The following general acute public hospitals are due to close as inpatient facilities, if the Hanly/Teamwork recommendations are implemented in full:

1 Our Lady’s, Navan, Co Kildare
2 St Columcille’s, Loughlinstown, Co Dublin
3 Naas General, Co Kildare
4 St Michael’s, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin
5 Mullingar General, Co Offaly
6 Portlaoise General, Co Laois
7 Ennis General, Co Clare
8 Nenagh General, Co Tipperary
9 Our Lady’s, Cashel, Co Tippperary
10 St Joseph’s, Clonmel, Co Tipperary
11 St John’s, Limerick
12 Cavan General
13 Louth General, Dundalk
14 Monaghan General
15 Our Lady of Lourdes, Drogheda
16 Letterkenny General, Co Donegal*
17 St Luke’s, Kilkenny
18 Wexford General
19 Bantry General, Co Cork
20 Mallow General, Co Cork
21 Mercy University, Cork
22 Kerry General, Tralee*
23 St. Finbarr’s, Cork
24 South Infirmary/Victoria, Cork
25 Merlin Park Galway
26 Mayo General, Castlebar*
27 Portiuncula, Ballinasloe, Co Galway
28 Roscommon General

The following single specialty acute public hospitals are also set to close as inpatient facilities, if the Hanly/Teamwork recommendations are implemented in full:

1 St Luke’s, Dublin
2 Coombe Women’s, Dublin
3 Clontarf Orthopaedic, Dublin
4 National Maternity, Holles St, Dublin**
5 National Rehabilitation, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin
6 Our Lady’s Children’s, Crumlin, Dublin
7 Peamount, Newcastle, Co Dublin
8 Rotunda, Dublin
9 Royal Victoria Eye and Ear, Dublin
10 St Mary’s, Baldoyle Co Dublin
11 St Mary’s Orthopaedic, Cappagh Dublin
12 Temple St Children’s, Dublin
13 St Nessan’s Orthopaedic, Croom, Co Limerick
14 St Munchin’s Maternity, Limerick
15 Our Lady’s, Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim
16 Orthopaedic, Kilcreene, Co Kilkenny
17 St Mary’s Orthopaedic, Gurranebraher, Cork

Notes: * Hospitals such as Letterkenny General Hospital, Tralee General Hospital and Castlebar General Hospital, are likely to remain open, due to their geographic location.
** The National Maternity Hospital, Holles St, has been seeking to ‘transfer’ to St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin 4, for a number of years.

Since 2004, over 40 smaller and single specialty (public) hospitals have been earmarked for closure as inpatient units. Medium-sized public hospitals, in Tallaght, Tralee, Sligo and Castlebar will also see their services severely curtailed under another banner, the ‘national cancer strategy’. This is the strategy that is being used to close St Luke’s Hospital, Dublin, a hospital renowned for the high quality of its cancer services. Meanwhile Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin and Temple St Children’s Hospital, Dublin are being shut under another strategy, the proposal for a new ‘National Children’s Hospital’.

These closures have their roots in the 2003 Hanly Report, which the Taoiseach has confirmed is Government policy: the report was drawn up by a review group headed by private sector CEO and millionaire businessman David Hanly. The group proposed cutting Ireland’s acute public hospitals to 13, and suggested that a population of up to 500 000 was required for a ‘viable’ A&E unit. Hanly also recommended closing hospitals that specialised in a particular area, ‘relocating’ them onto general hospital sites. Single specialty hospitals in Ireland include psychiatric, obstetrics, orthopaedics, cancer, children’s, and ENT.

The Hanly Report was followed by the Teamwork Report in 2006. This particular review of hospital services was outsourced to a firm of management consultants from Bolton specialising in public-private partnerships in the British NHS. Teamwork reiterated the Hanly line. In its ‘action plan’ for the north-east. Teamwork proposed closing all five acute public hospitals in the region: three of these closures are currently being implemented on a trial basis for closures pending in the rest of the country.

Teamwork has also drawn up an ‘action plan’ for the mid-west, which HSE has refused to release; the firm is also understood to be active in the southern region.