This article is from page 1 of the 2011-08-09 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 1 JPG
SERVICES at the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Ennis are in danger of being slashed from now until the end of the 2011 as the Health Services Executive moves to pare back the budget over-run that has been incurred in the first six months of the year. The Clare People has learned that there has been an over-spend of over € 1 million at the hospital from January to June 2011, and while this figure pales in comparison to the € 14 million over-spend at the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick during the same period, there are now fears that key services will be curtailed in Ennis to make sure that the hospital comes in under budget at year’s end.
When contacted by The Clare People , the HSE didn’t comment specifically on Ennis but said in a statement that “there is a clear expectation that the services will manage within available budget”.
The statement also said “there are no options outside the mid-west” to source the money to meet the cost of the over-spend. “As part of reducing expenditure in the mid-west, we are reducing agency and overtime expenditure by 50 per cent from August to the end of the year, having previ- ously reduced it by smaller amounts.
“As we can no longer finance the cost of agency and overtime as a means of replacing staff in a moratorium controlled environment, we continue to work with our front line service managers to explore all possible measures to minimise the impact on front line service delivery,” the statement continued.
News of the Ennis over-spend comes against the back-drop over widespread cuts in health care budgets throughout the mid-west region, with a demand that € 17 million be shaved off spending in 2011.