The organisations representing hospital consultants refused to say yesterday if their members will agree to their private beds being moved out of public hospitals and into separate private facilities without them being compensated.
Donal Duffy, assistant general secretary of the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association, said he could not indicate one way or another whether compensation would be sought for the move. This would all be thrashed out in the context of the renegotiation of consultants' contracts due to begin in the autumn, he said. "I am sure we will be discussing that issue amongst all other issues at that point in time."
He warned, however, that contract negotiations could not begin until concerns around the introduction of a new insurance scheme to cover medical malpractice were ironed out. But the difficulties around indemnity were not insurmountable, he said.
Minister for Health Mary Harney announced plans on Thursday to move 1,000 private beds out of public hospitals over the next five years. The private patients who occupy them at present will be moved to new private hospitals to be built on the sites of public hospitals. The land for these will be sold or leased to developers.
The Health Service Executive has been told to seek expressions of interest from developers wishing to build the private facilities.
However, it has been warned in a letter from the secretary general of the Department of Health that it "should only accept proposals for the development of private facilities on the public hospital site where the consultants accept that there would be no question of them having to be compensated for the transfer of their private beds to the private facility".
Dr Asam Ishtiaq, president of the Irish Medical Organisation, said he found that aspect of the deal confusing as new contracts for consultants had not yet been negotiated.
"This is tying to sidestep important industrial relations issues. Privileges and obligations of consultants are currently part of the consultants' common contract . . . this package would appear to be a material change to the contract and can only be negotiated with consultants' representative bodies."
Dr Ishtiaq also pointed out that while Ms Harney's plan for extra beds was welcome, it had to be borne in mind that more than 70 per cent of admissions to acute hospitals (public hospitals) were emergencies and neither consultants nor hospital management had any control over whether these patients were public or private.
Meanwhile, Dr James Sheehan, founder of the Blackrock Clinic, said Ms Harney had shown initiative in coming up with the plan but many aspects of it needed to be clarified. There were questions around whether the private facilities built on the grounds of public hospitals would be fully independent and whether they would have all their own operating theatres and diagnostic equipment.