Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)

Question 3: To ask the Minister for Health if he will confirm that cuts in the health budget in 2012 will severely impact on frontline services and will result in longer waiting times for surgical procedures, the shortage of non consultant hospital doctors will mean longer waiting times on trolleys and longer queues in emergency departments and that the planned closure of community nursing units will impact heavily on older persons and their families and makes no economic sense whatever in view of the fact that the cost of caring for a person in such units is approximately €1,300 a week as opposed to €1,000 a day in an acute hospital [1599/12]

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