Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

Everybody must be allocated a budget. The reduction in the allocation to Crumlin was less than many other places. Professor Drumm will be addressing the health committee next week on the children's hospitals, specifically regarding the issues on Crumlin. He is familiar with them, having been a clinician there for many years. There is a 17,000 day overtime bill in Crumlin. By the end of this year, we hope to move to a single surgical department between the three children's hospitals, with seven surgeons. That will greatly cut down on on-call overtime and so on. We hope to move to a single, clinical critical care department between Temple Street and Crumlin. Professor Des Bowen from Canada has been brought in to help with this. All of these initiatives can greatly reduce overheads in the hospital and direct more activity to patient care.

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