New figures reveal that some public hospitals are using more than twice as many beds as they should to carry out planned surgery on private patients.
The figures, compiled by health boards for the Department of Health, reveal that at Tallaght Hospital, Dublin, some 40 per cent of elective or non-urgent admissions were of private patients in 2002.
Yet Department of Health guidelines dictate that State-funded hospitals should have a practice mix of 20 per cent private and 80 per cent public.
The Department acknowledges this figure can be skewed by emergency admissions, which by their nature have to be attended to whether the patient is public or private.
However, for planned or elective admissions the guidelines should be adhered to.
The figures also indicate that 47 per cent of non-urgent admissions at Limerick Regional Hospital were private, that 46 per cent of elective admissions at Mallow General Hospital were private, and that at the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street, 47 per cent of elective admissions were private. At the Coombe Women's Hospital, the figure for private elective admissions was 42 per cent.
The figures were published in yesterday's Sunday Tribune.
Last night a Department of Health spokesman said the Department was very concerned at the figures and would be studying them very closely.
He added that a full review would be conducted to see why so many private patients are taking up public beds for planned surgery. Undoubtedly this is affecting the numbers of public patients on waiting lists and the Department's drive to reduce same, he said.