The former INO president Ms Kay Craughwell told the conference that anyone who challenged inequities in the health system would be accused of being anti-private practice.
Where there was a shortage of beds "the person with the private money is going to get the bed", she said.
A number of delegates claimed that hospital managers and administrators were treated with contempt by consultants. "General management is not at the races" with consultants, Ms Craughwell said.
Ms Deirdre Daly, a member of the executive council of the INO, complained that the voice of women had been lost from the health services.
Pregnant women waited three hours in maternity hospitals in Dublin for three-minute appointments, she said. When they had their babies they were sent home after one to three days "with no support".
Ms Daly said the Fine Gael health strategy mentioned nurses only once and midwives not at all, so far as she could see. She could not find a reference to women's health in the document, she said.
A delegate speaking on behalf of the Castlebar branch earlier said a patient seeking urology treatment at Mayo General Hospital would have had to wait three to six months as a public patient but was seen the next day as a private patient.
A Western Health Board spokeswoman later told The Irish Times that there was no urology service in Mayo General Hospital except for a monthly public clinic in which patients were seen on the basis of medical need.
A person seeking private treatment would go to University College Hospital, Galway. Urgent cases were referred to Galway immediately.
The region needed more urologists, she said, and the health board was applying for more posts. The average waiting times ranged from 120 to 172 weeks.