This article is from page 18 of the 2008-05-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
THE HSE and the Government are being asked to rethink the sums when it comes to providing health services for the county.
Fine Gael Deputy Joe Carey said this week that a proper CT scanner at Ennis General Hospital could be in- Stalled for as little as €220,000 from the health services coffers.
The HSE is currently spending €130,000 each year transporting pa- tients from Ennis to Limerick for a basic CT scan.
“This is a significant cost, but just as Significant is a cost of having an ambulance tied up on these journeys,
the costs of having beds occupied that would not otherwise need to be occupied if a scanner was on hand, and the additional staff time going into managing the situation as it cur- rently stands,” said Deputy Carey.
If the much needed scanner was put in place the HSE’s only investment would be €350,000 per annum in staffing costs, according to the TD.
This 1s anet cost of under €220,000 per year when you take out the sav- ings in transport costs alone.”
“The Mid-West Hospitals ‘Trust will fund the new scanner at no cost to the HSE.
“Clearly, when you look at the facts, it makes huge sense to make
this moderate investment in order to get the huge gains that will accrue.
“The number of people travelling to Limerick for CT scans has gone up by 33 per cent since 2004 and that figure will presumably continue to increase. 35 of the country’s public hospitals have CT scanners. Surely now there is no justification for En- nis not to have one too,” he said.
In response to his Parliamentary Questions on the matter, the HSE have also confirmed to Deputy Carey that the accommodation of a CT scanner for Ennis is curremtly be- ing pursued under the 2008 Capital Plan.
Sinn Féin in Clare also believe that
the HSE’s local policy does not add up and urged them to change their lo- cal hospital police.
The report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Devel- opment found the government was basing its plans to centralise serv- ices and downgrade or close regional hospitals on a population-to-hospi- tal ratio presented by the College of Surgeons in England and did not take account of best practice in other Eu- ropean countries.
“The HSE and government must completely revise their plans for hos- pital centralisation in light of this report,” said Sinn Féin’s Ennis chair- person Finberg McGeehan.