Seanad debates
Wednesday, 5 November 2003
National Development Plan Mid-Term Evaluation: Statements.
I want to refer to the health service to which Senator Mansergh referred. There has been a certain amount of distortion about what the report said about the service. It does not state that we should not have 3,000 more acute beds although clearly we should. A host of reports, including the recent Hanly report, states that we must have at least 3,000 more beds. It states that doing this last year when 250 to 270 beds were closed at any given time was stupid, and to do it at a time when one has allocated in a preordained way 20% of beds in public hospitals for private use is also stupid. I endorse and accept both these sentiments.
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