The eight new private hospitals due to be built on the sites of public hospitals across the State under a Government-backed initiative will find it "almost impossible" to get staff, the chairman of a new private hospital in Dublin has warned.
Niall O'Carroll, chairman of the board of the new Hermitage Medical Clinic, in Lucan, said there needed to be more discussion and analysis of the Government's plan before it went ahead. He was speaking at the official opening of the new clinic yesterday by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
"Under the Government's incentives and tax allowances, there are about seven hospitals built, or in the pipeline to be built. A further eight co-located hospitals will make it 15 chasing a very limited pool of expert consultants and physicians and, if they are limited, the quantity and the reservoir of experienced nursing specialists is much less again," Mr O'Carroll said.
He added that when the Hermitage Clinic was planned five years ago, it was decided to build it on the basis of research that indicated a shortage of capacity in the private sector.
"If our original research is right, I can't see how eight additional co-located hospitals, some not very far from here, will be justified," he said. More analysis and discussion of the plan was required and the case had to be made for them, he said.
The eight new co-located private hospitals are due to be built at the Mid-Western Hospital in Limerick; Waterford Regional Hospital; Cork University Hospital; Sligo General Hospital and St James's Hospital, Beaumont Hospital, Blanchardstown and Tallaght hospitals in Dublin.
The Government plans to use the new private hospitals to free up 1,000 beds in the public hospitals, normally occupied by private patients. Legally binding agreements are expected to be signed by the Health Service Executive at the end of May with the developers who will build them. All the main Opposition parties have said they will scrap the co-location plan if in power after the general election.
Meanwhile, the Hermitage Clinic, which has 126 beds and seven operating theatres, has been built at a cost of €130 million. Its backers include Dr James Sheehan, Dr George Duffy, Sean Mulryan, Larry Goodman and Dr John Flynn.
Deals have been reached with all three private insurance companies to cover patients attending. The National Treatment Purchase Fund has also agreed to use the facility to reduce public hospital waiting lists for surgery and outpatient appointments. The HSE has agreed to transfer patients to it if they are waiting too long for beds in A&E at Dublin's main hospitals.
The hospital itself expects to open its own A&E unit in the autumn. Its unit will not accept major trauma cases. It already has advanced diagnostic facilities, including MRI and PET scanning equipment, as well as two linear accelerators for providing radiotherapy to cancer patients.
Opening the hospital, Mr Ahern said he was a strong supporter of private hospital facilities and recalled opening other private facilities in Galway and Waterford recently.
He referred to taking political flak for supporting the private sector and said he enjoyed it, pointing out that "ill-informed people are always easy enough to handle".
He said he would have thought at the end of his second term as Taoiseach, after investing billions of euro in the health service, that people would be telling him about all that had been achieved. But this was not the case.
Daily, he said, he was faced with people who had to wait months, or even a year, to see a consultant after being referred by their GP. "How, I don't understand, but anyway there's lots of things I don't understand in this life," Mr Ahern said.