Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

St. Joseph's District Hospital, Ballina, County Mayo, a 62-bed hospital, provides step-down facilities for patients discharged from Mayo General Hospital and those identified as requiring a long-stay bed in a community nursing unit. It also provides outpatient clinics such as surgical, medical, paediatric and orthopaedic services.

Staff have been informally informed that there may be substantial bed closures in the hospital in the new year. If these go ahead, the ability of the hospital to perform will be seriously undermined. Mayo General Hospital performs well on the basis of a good relationship with district hospitals in Ballina, Swinford and Belmullet and their capacity to deal with step-down facilities. Its performance is in direct contrast to that of the regional hospital, University College Hospital, Galway, where bed management issues are serious.

Up to 60 beds have been closed in Dalton community nursing unit, Claremorris, Áras Deirbhile, Belmullet, McBride community unit, Westport, and at St. Augustine's, the other community nursing unit in Ballina. There is a concern in the county that services for the elderly are being downgraded and people will be forced into the private nursing home market.

Due to a large number of retirements that will occur in the health services, management has proposed a temporary closure of the facilities in St. Joseph's District Hospital. We all know what a temporary closure is in HSE language. Deputy Keaveney referred to €61 million being owed to HSE West. We have raised the matter of this deficit at local fora meetings. One of the reasons given by management for the deficit is that forms consultants should fill out are not being filled out and forwarded to private health insurers. I do not have a difficulty with what they are paid for the job they do but if they are responsible for a €61million debt due to the HSE, which, in turn, may be responsible for the downgrading of services for older people across Mayo, then there is something wrong with the system.

I would like the Minister of State to visit the hospital. Her predecessor with day-to-day with responsibility for the primary care strategy had opened a state-of-the-art primary care centre and she will find no better alcohol addiction centre in the country than Hope House in Foxford. The staff and management are angels for the work they do. However, if our hospital is undermined, this will not be the first time I raise the issue in the House. It has served my town for generations and I would like that to continue.

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