Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I am advised this will happen during 2009.

In respect of many of the issues pertaining to critical care and high dependency, if the hospitals continued to operate separately as two independent hospitals, it would not be possible to deliver the high-quality service that currently is the benchmark. While this may not have been the benchmark in the past, in regard to the answers to earlier questions, we undoubtedly must change the way in which we work to meet the patient safety criteria of today, given the new environment including the presence of HIQA and so on.

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