Published Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Trade unions did not believe the cuts could be made without hitting services and threatened industrial action to stop the health service being wrecked.
Belfast Health and Social Care Trust chief executive William McKee said the bed cuts and other efficiency savings can be made without affecting the quality of services and without planned compulsory redundancies.
But he warned there were major challenges ahead and what happened would depend on how much money was made available to fund health and social care services.
Draft cost-cutting proposals included closing 75 beds in the Royal Victoria Hospital and another 75 in the City Hospital - but according to Mr McKee it will not affect services.
He said: "We have worked closely with doctors, nurses , health care staff and support services to achieve a number of efficiency savings , as required by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
"New and clever ways of working mean that we can treat the same number of people in fewer beds, to the same high quality."
But Mr McKee sounded a warning to the politicians holding the purse strings: "Our staff have been doing the very best with the money that is available but health and social care services need to grow year on year just to stand still.
"The decision for Northern Ireland's politicians now is to find ways of securing real and continued growth in services to help provide the drugs, the treatment and the services that our population needs."
'Under-resourced'
Health Minister Michael McGimpsey will have to give the green light to the cuts and indicated he would say yes.
"Nobody should be under any doubt that the health service is seriously under-resourced, its funding is very difficult at the minute, demand is rising year on year at 9% per annum in some areas," he said.
The minister said he wanted hospital beds to be used more efficiently by freeing them up quicker after operations.
"The beds are not disappearing out of the system, they will be closed for a period of some months to allow the money to catch up," he said.
Savings in other areas such as administration cuts could accrue and be ploughed back into bed provision, he said.
Health service union Unison said more cuts would come at the Ulster Hospital, the Mid Ulster Hospital and Whiteabbey Hospital.
Every health trust was in the grip of a "financial crisis" amounting to some £65 million, said regional secretary Patricia McKeown.
She said the union was preparing to take the fight against cuts into the public arena and where there was no alternative would take industrial action.
"Somebody has to stand up for our health service," she said. "Once again it will be left to front line health workers to defend them on behalf of us all."