Minister Eamon Ó Cuív is the key figure behind health crisis talks which have been arranged for Galway on Friday. All the TDs and Senators from Galway and Roscommon have been invited to the meeting with health service bosses which was called so that the health funding crisis could be outlined in full.

The situation is seen by some as having taken on a new urgency this week – with what is the first ‘on the record’ admission by the HSE West that services to patients may be affected by some of the proposed cuts. That is a significant development because, up to now, no one has been prepared to admit as much.

Weeks ago, Minister Ó Cuív took the unprecedented step of calling for the talks involving all the western TDs and Senators with the HSE West, in what he said was an effort to get ‘the bottom line’ on the financial crisis facing health services, in light of HSE top management seeking tens of millions in spending cuts.

In that statement, an angry Minister Ó Cuív also said he was demanding to know whether the root of the crisis lay in gross over-spending by the western hospitals, or was it because of historic under-funding of western services which failed to consider key regional problems like poor transport, difficulty in getting patients to hospital, and an older and more scattered population.

I understand the reason Fridays talks involve only TDs and Senators from Galway and Roscommon is that the Galway and Roscommon hospitals (University Hospital Galway, Merlin Park Hospital, Portiuncula Hospital Ballinasloe and Roscommon Hospital), are inextricably linked in any attempt to cut the general hospital spending by the HSE West under its plans to save millions before the end of this year.

The estimate of the figures to be saved in the entire western area (stretching from Donegal to Limerick) ranges from €50 million to €90 million. The widely varying figures depend on when stringent action is taken to reduce the deficit.

Health bosses maintained in talks with the trade unions that, if the over spending was tackled now, then the deficit would be €50 million by year’s end, but, if spending was allowed to run until the end of the year at its present rate, then the deficit would reach €90millions, with close on €30millions alone for University Hospital Galway.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.