Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 120: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the number of cancelled operations in hospitals last year; her views on the fact that the majority of these operations are cancelled due to unavailability of beds; the steps that she intends to take to address this issue; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29545/06]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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It is regrettable that some patients have their operations postponed and I recognise that this can cause upset and inconvenience for them and their families. The Health Service Executive endeavours to keep postponements to a minimum and to have postponed operations rescheduled as soon as possible. However due to the nature of the demands on the acute hospital system, in some instances, it is necessary to re-schedule planned treatment when priority has to be given to emergency cases or for a variety of other reasons such as infection control.

The acute hospital services treated over 1 million patients as in-patients and daycases in 2005. While information on the total number of postponed operations in 2005 is not immediately available from the HSE, I am advised that it represents a small percentage of overall activity. For example, in the case of the nine main acute hospitals in the greater Dublin area, the number of in-patient and day case postponements represented less than 7% of the total number of elective admissions booked in 2005.

This Government is committed to developing services in order to minimise the number of postponed operations through the provision of additional in-patient beds and day case places as well as maximising care and supports in the community.

In 2001, the year of the publication of the Health Strategy, the average number of in-patient beds and day places available in the 53 public acute hospitals was 12,145. At the end of 2005, this figure had increased by 1204 to a total of 13,349, involving an additional 724 in-patient beds and 480 day places.

A further 450 acute beds/day places are in various stages of planning and development under the Health Service Executive's Capital Plans.

I have already referred today to my initiative to have private hospitals built on the campuses of public hospitals. This is designed to enable up to 1,000 beds in public hospitals, which are currently used by private patients, to be re-designated for use by public patients. The HSE is currently engaged in a procurement process with the private sector to build and operate private hospitals on 10 public hospital sites.

All of these additional in-patient beds and day places will mean that this Government's commitment in the Health Strategy to increase total acute hospital capacity is well on the way to completion.