There are growing doubts about whether long-planned new State hospitals designed to provide care exclusively for elective or non-urgent patients will now be built before the 2030s.
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill told Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers in a submission on the revised National Development Plan in late May that the Government’s priorities for healthcare included building four new elective-only hospitals.
These were earmarked for two sites in Dublin and one in Cork and Galway.
However, the Department of Health said on Thursday that the HSE’s priority now was the design and planning of these facilities which have been under discussion for about seven years.
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The department said it and the HSE were “also focused on the delivery of the network of surgical hubs around the country”.
The Opposition has contended that the Minister did not secure sufficient funding in the €9.25 billion allocation to health under the revised National Development Plan to pay for all the projects under consideration in the health sector, including the elective hospitals.
Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane said there was “no chance” that all of the projects identified as priorities for the health service could be delivered within the level of funding provided under the revised National Development Plan.
He said he understood the cost of all the capital projects that had been under consideration by the department was in the region of €15 billion but that the Minister had secured about €9.25 billion.
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Mr Cullinane said the development of elective hospitals represented a key reform in the health sector as they would seek to separate what is known as scheduled care from unscheduled care. He said at present hospitals regularly had to cancel planned procedures for elective patients due to a surge in admissions from the emergency department.
He said he understood the development of these planned elective hospitals would be “delayed significantly” and at best they would go through the planning and design stages over the next five years. He said the sole reason for this was the necessary funding had not been made available.
Asked by The Irish Times whether it was envisaged that construction or commissioning of the planned new elective facilities would take place before 2030 – in the lifetime of the revised programme for government – the department said: “The HSE’s immediate priority is to progress the planning and design of the new elective treatment centres. Pending the outcome of those processes it would be premature to speculate on the timing of subsequent phases.”
The development of elective hospitals was a recommendation of the 2017 cross-party Sláintecare report. The Government had previously indicated these facilities could be built at Connolly Hospital in Dublin and on the site of the current children’s hospital in Crumlin as well as at St Stephen’s Hospital in Cork and at Merlin Park University Hospital in Galway.
The Minister’s letter to Mr Chambers on May 27th, listed the proposed six surgical hubs and the four elective hospitals as separate projects among the Government’s health priorities.
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The department said this week it and the HSE were focused on the delivery of the network of surgical hubs.
“This includes building on the Reeve’s centre in Tallaght, the newly opened surgical hub in Mount Carmel and the surgical hub in north Dublin to be opened this year. Construction is advancing in Galway, Cork and Limerick, and planning is under way following the Minister’s recent announcement of a new surgical hub for Letterkenny and for Sligo.”
