THE GOVERNMENT has been urged to place a 50 per cent levy on the private earnings of hospital consultants who work in the public system, as an alternative to the health service cutbacks currently being implemented or planned for next year.
Addressing the IHCA annual conference, Dr Anthony Staines, Professor of Health Systems Research at the School of Nursing in Dublin City University suggested such consultants could collectively be receiving up to €350 million in private fees, though he said that the true figure was currently unknown.
He said a levy of 50 per cent could generate considerable amounts of money at a time when the health service was facing considerable financial difficulties.
Prof Staines told the conference that the HSE was likely to be asked to make savings of between €500 million and €1 billion for next year.
He said that when he worked in the university sector in the UK he was allowed to carry out private work outside. However, he said that if he received £5,000 for a report he would have to give £2,500 to his employer.
He suggested that under his proposal consultants would be taxed on the amount they earned after the levy was applied.
Prof Staines said that at the moment there was a policy in Ireland of encouraging private practice. "We should stop spending public money on encouraging private practice," he added. He said that the forthcoming cuts were going to hurt a lot and they would cripple services unless they were implemented fairly cleverly.
He said that the HSE was not a well-run organisation and that poorly-run organisations survived large budget cuts fairly badly.
"We need a rapid programme of effective cost-reduction measures and by rapid, I mean, within about six months.
"We are going to need clear, fair, transparent and enforced budgets. And it does not matter what your TD says. And I am not trying to get at Noel Grealish or Mattie McGrath, but it does not matter what your TD threatens to do, the budgets have to be held," he added.
Measures that could be adopted he said to save money for the health service, were the abolition of ending of subsidies for private healthcare and that the amount which was not collected for the provision of private treatment in public hospitals could be nearer €100 million than €50 million.
