Health Service Executive chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm yesterday warmly welcomed the move by both public and private hospitals to keep non-emergency patients in hotels and said that it was the way forward for the Irish health system.
Prof Drumm said the move by both the Rotunda and the Mater private hospitals in Dublin to accommodate low-risk patients in nearby hotels while awaiting procedures suggested that the Irish health system was moving into the modern era.
"I absolutely welcome it - it's the forward thinking of all health systems. All major hospitals across the world have developed hotels near hospitals and our whole plan in building new hospitals will be to have hotels on the sites," said Prof Drumm.
"Why should somebody be asked to stay in hospital when they are well enough to stay in a hotel. The way this is being treated is so typical of what can go on in the Irish health service - a modern health service should have people in hotels," he added.
Prof Drumm said HSE studies on bed dependency had found that 40-50 per cent of beds in Irish hospitals were occupied by people who were well enough to stay in hotels but had been admitted to hospitals days before they were due to undergo surgery or diagnostic tests.
"When you come from the country to Dublin for a test that you could have done as an out-patient in Dublin, why should you stay in a hospital and why should we pay four and five times what it would cost to keep you in a hotel to keep you in a hospital?"
Prof Drumm also played down differences between himself and Minister for Health Mary Harney after a leaked document showed that radiotherapy services would not be ready by 2011 as planned but instead would take until 2014/2015 to implement.
Ms Harney had insisted that the €500 million plan for radiotherapy services was best delivered through a public-private partnership, saying "the PPP is the quickest way", but Prof Drumm said that the PPP was "a more difficult way to deliver anything".
Asked about the differences in their views, Prof Drumm said he wasn't sure there was "any huge difference" but insisted the HSE didn't believe that a full rollout of the service could be achieved by 2011 through a PPP.
