Give private beds to public patients - ESRI expert

A health economist warned today access to public hospital facilities by private patients had to be reconsidered to allow public patients equal access to health care.

Prof Miriam Wiley of the Economic and Social Research Institute

Prof Miriam Wiley of the Economic and Social Research Institute was speaking at the annual SIPTU Nursing Convention in Galway.

Referring to hospital bed increases being suggested under the proposed new health strategy, Prof Wiley said five to 10 years was too long to wait for extra beds to become available.

She suggested about 600 private beds be redesignated as five-day public beds as a short-term response which would utilse beds within the system. This would drastically reduce the waiting list which currently stands at just under 28,000, she added.

According to Prof Wiley's research, an estimated 20 per cent of beds in public hospitals are now occupied by private patients.

She also referred to nursing shortages as an impediment to service provision and described the shortage of nurses in the Dublin region as "critical".

"What is most worrying about the nursing shortage is that there is no immediate sign of abatement," she said.

But Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, general secretary of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) disagreed with any redesignation of beds. He said 450 patients were currently in hospital beds who medically did not need to be but had nowhere else to go.

"Redesignation of beds is simply shifting the chairs on the Titanic. What we need is extra beds," he said.

In a separate development SIPTU expressed concern to the Benchmarking Body about recent Government interference.

SIPTU regional secretary Mr Brendan Hayes said: "The teachers have been given what can only be described as a promise that they will get between 15 and 20 per cent of a pay rise. SIPTU will not accept that nurses will be treated any less favourably than teachers.

"Politicians had better be clear ' they have interfered with the process, and as far as we are concerned, we have made our submission, put forward our demands and set out our stall and if we are treated less favourably than teachers then we will take industrial action."