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APPENDIX IX.CORK HEALTH AUTHORITY: COSTS OF TUBERCULOSIS HOSPITALS.Cléireach an Choiste, Coiste um Chuntais Phoiblí. On the occasion of my appearance before the Committee of Public Accounts on 31st January last, I undertook to furnish information as to the expenditure on Tuberculosis Hospitals by the Cork Health Authority. The expenditure by that Health Authority, it was pointed out, showed an increase, in the year 1961-62, as compared with the previous year, although the expenditure on this service generally had declined. An investigation of the returns furnished by the Health Authority has shown that factors peculiar to the services in Cork in the years 1960-61 and 1961-62 produced results which were not in keeping with the general trend of expenditure on Tuberculosis Hospitals in those years. The figures, on which the Health Services Grant in respect of the years 1960-61 and 1961-62 charged in the Appropriation Accounts for those years was based, included in respect of Tuberculosis Hospital Services of Cork Health Authority £130,100 and £159,200 respectively. (The former figure being the sum of those recorded for the Cork Corporation and Cork County Council). The foregoing figures include the cost of St. Stephen’s Hospital, Cork, in which there was over the period of the two years a considerable fall in the numbers of patients sent by other Health Authorities for maintenance and treatment. This resulted in a decline of £26,000 in the income offset against gross expenditure in arriving at those figures. As variations in bed occupancy have little effect on some categories of institutional costs, particularly over a short period, this fall in income was very substantially reflected in the net cost of the Hospital. For some time past patients have been receiving treatment in St. Stephen’s Hospital for conditions other than tuberculosis. The Health Authority has not, up to and including the year 1961-62, segregated the expenditure on the maintenance and treatment of these patients and the full cost of the Hospital has accordingly been returned under the heading of “Tuberculosis Hospitals”. Had the cost of the non-tubercular patients been excluded from the accounts of both the years 1960-61 and 1961-62 the increase in total cost between those years would have been moderated by not less than £3,000. The Health Authority has been asked to adjust the accounts for the year 1962-63 and subsequent years by allocating an appropriate sum to the heading “General Hospitals” in respect of such patients. The operation of the “eighth round” of increases in salaries and wages resulted in additional costs of £10,000 in respect of St. Stephen’s Hospital in the year 1961-62 as compared with 1960-61. The accounts of other Health Authorities might be expected to be similarly affected by the general increases of remuneration but the immediate effect is more marked in the case of an Authority maintaining a large institution of its own. The factors mentioned above which tend towards higher net expenditure on the Tuberculosis Hospital amount to £39,000, and it would appear reasonable to expect that but for their operation the costs of the service to the Cork Health Authority in the years in question would have been consistent with the general trend of cost of Tuberculosis Hospitals. (Sínithe) P. Ó MUIREADHAIGH, Oifigeach Cuntasaíochta, An Roinn Sláinte. 6 Márta, 1963. |
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