WRH and The Media

Bards · 19-01-2006 12:51pm #1

Here it is again boys & girls, from the Kilkenny People
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St Luke's loses out on funding
ST LUKE'S HOSPITAL in Kilkenny has lost out on E117,369 in funding in its budget for 2006.

Figures released by the Department of Health this week reveal that St Lukes will receive E117,369 less than in 2005.
The amounts are deducted under a system called Casemix which rewards efficient hospitals and penalises inefficient ones. The Department of Health allocates 30% of hospital funding on the basis of the Casemix model. The department plans on increasing this to 40% next year and 50% the following year. According to a spokesperson for the Health Service Executive one of the main reasons for the reduction in funding is because of temporary bed closures due to refurbishment.
"St. Luke's Hospital has spent over E1.5 million in upgrading the wards throughout the hospital. To enable the refurbishment to take place beds were closed on a planned basis and this led to a reduction in the numbers of patients treated.
"All of the beds are now back on stream and the refurbishment work has been completed, therefore it is anticipated that activity will increase and will not lead to a reduction in funding in then next Casemix report," she added.
Meanwhile two other hospitals in the southeast have received a windfall in funding in their budgets for 2006. Waterford General Hospital will receive an extra E1,212,266 in funding this year while Wexford General Hospital will get n extra E853,453.