Health to be targeted in 'Bord Snip' cuts

Patients and health workers are expected to be hit hard in the report of the expert group on public service cuts to be published later today.

Among the expected recommendations of "An Bord Snip Nua" are for prescription charges to be introduced for medical card holders; cuts in allowances for public service workers including nurses; greater scrutiny by the State of the accounts of hospitals not directly owned but funded by the HSE; and cuts in public service jobs, which are likely to include HSE jobs.

It is expected that the job and allowance cuts will be strongly resisted by health unions, while the HSE will welcome the having greater scrutiny of voluntary hospital's accounts.

At present, although the HSE almost completely funds the services of all voluntary hospitals, many of them are not under the direct financial control of the HSE.

The "snip" report is expected to recommend that the Comptroller and Auditor General be allowed inspect the accounts of 26 voluntary hospitals in order to oversee exactly how they spend the taxpayers' money allocated to them.

The HSE currently cannot direct how these hospitals, many of whom are run by religious orders, manage their budgets once they allocate their funding to them each year.

This issue has been highlighted in the current row over spending cuts at Crumlin Children's Hospital. The HSE and Department of Health has been strongly criticised over the cuts.

However, both Health Minister Mary Harney and HSE chief Brendan Drumm have both indicated that a key issue was how efficiently the hospital was managing the budget allocated to it.

Any proposal to impose charges on medical card holders is also likely to lead to strong opposition from lobby groups, especially after the over 70s medical card row.

It will be pointed out that those currently holding full medical cards, which entities them to free drugs, are on very low incomes. Others on higher incomes are entitled to doctor visit-only cards

Fine Gael's Dr James Reilly has pointed out that the income threshold for a full medical card is currently half the  minimum wage.

The ESRI, in a report out today, points out that the medical card income limit for a single person under 66 years is currently €184 per week , while the official income level at which people are said to be at risk of poverty is €229, and the average industrial wage is around €630.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Mary Harney has been accused of "news burial" by planning to publish a major report into the Leas Cross Nursing Home scandal just after the the launch of the public service cuts report this afternoon.

The new Leas Cross report is the second probe into the scandal, following the 2006 O'Neill report, which concluded that care in the nursing home between 2002 and 2005 amounted to "institutional abuse."

The O'Neill report looked into the deaths of 105 elderly residents at the Dublin nursing home, which closed in 2005.

The new probe, which is expected to strongly criticise the nursing home and the HSE, has been carried out by a special commission set up by the Health Minister in 2007.

[Posted: Thu 16/07/2009]