Donnelly denies double-counting of hospital beds in Budget 2021
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The health minister Stephen Donnelly has said there is no double-counting of hospital beds announced in the budget.
The health budget will rise by €4bn in 2021, to over €22bn, including €467m to permanently fund 2,600 acute and community beds, though Mr Donnelly has been forced to deny that these beds are "double-counted".
"Some of these beds are part of the HSE's Winter Plan, but they were only funded to the end of April," he said.
"We're facing the most challenging winter in healthcare in memory. This budget will ensure that they are part of the system on a permanent basis. I don't see how they are being double-counted. We've been very clear on this.
"While those beds exist, they aren't permanent beds — they're temporary beds. They are not permanent without this budget.
"For me, it's about how many permanent beds will we have next year versus the end of this year, and that figure is around 2,600."
Mr Donnelly said the plans to increase ICU capacity to 321 next year will involve the hiring of 500 additional staff.
The minister said that his "three major tasks" are to improve patient access, experience, and outcome in the health service.
"We've known that our bed capacity isn't where it should be," he said. "We are addressing this."
Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall said the budget will not address the ICU capacity issues.
"The investment in ICUs flowing from Budget 2021 will fall far short of what is required," he said. "While capital expenditure in additional beds is welcome, there is a shortfall of around 250 critical care beds in the system.
"The budget allows for 66 new such beds. This represents a clear lack of ambition and will disappoint people who would have hoped that the budget would address the situation.
"The headline health figure in Budget 2021 masks the fact that much of the additional health spending next year will be for Covid-19 measures, including the test-and-trace system and PPE. New demands on service delivery, infection prevention and control, and social distancing has put extreme pressure on a system that was already operating over-capacity."
Mr Donnelly said he has been in conversation with campaigner John Wall, who expressed his disappointment that the budget did not mention medical cards for the terminally ill.
"He and I have spoken on an ongoing basis," said Mr Donnelly. "There is a clinical advisory board report that has been done on this and meetings are being arranged, but I don't want to preempt what it will say. Suffice to say that it is my intention that supports are found.
"But we have to do it in a way that is in line with clinical recommendations. There's a lot of things happening below the surface which aren't mentioned in the budget, and this is one of those."
Mr Donnelly said that discussions were ongoing with the INMO and nursing representatives regarding placement grants or payment for student nurses and midwives.
"Absolutely something is going to have to be done there," he said.