Mary Wallace (Meath East, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Each hospital funded by the HSE is required to deliver services within the financial allocation provided. The HSE is involved in ongoing discussions with hospital management regarding its 2008 financial allocation and service plan. The hospital has an overrun of €10 million from last year and a projected overrun of €14 million for this year.

As part of the discussions on the budgetary position, the HSE has made an agreement with the hospital, on a once-off basis, to deal with last year's overrun of €10 million and to provide a further €7 million this year. However, the additional funding arrangement is contingent on the hospital working within its budget, which will be amended from €137 million to €144 million for this year, up from €128 million in 2007. The hospital must achieve savings of €7 million from the projected overrun of €14 million for 2008.

The priority of the HSE and hospital management is to ensure that services for children at the hospital are maintained at an optimum level. The initial focus of the discussions on budgetary issues between hospital management and the HSE is on ensuring that all areas of non-pay expenditure are critically examined.

In this regard, the hospital made a recent decision to close St. Michael's ward, which treats a mix of medical patients, a proportion of whom are children with cystic fibrosis, at weekends and move them to an adjacent ward, St. Joseph's, which also treats a mix of patients, including orthopaedic patients. The hospital took this decision as the occupancy on both wards was approximately 50% at weekends. As a result, five to ten patients from St. Michael's ward, a small proportion of whom are cystic fibrosis patients, are transferred to an adjacent ward at weekends.

The infection control team in the hospital is satisfied that there is no additional risk to children as a result of this move. The very same standard of care is being delivered to these children. There is no change in the specialised doctors and nurses and medical team caring for the patients who are transferred. On transfer, the children with cystic fibrosis are nursed in single rooms. The medical care delivered to these children remains the same. All patients and families are contacted by the nursing staff before they are transferred and there is an opportunity for families' concerns to be addressed by the multidisciplinary team. The only change for these children and their families is the location and there is ongoing monitoring and assessment of the situation by the infection control team.

The Minister has been assured by the HSE that patient care has not been compromised at the hospital as a result of the weekend closures of this ward.

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