HSE will lose money only if 'private beds unoccupied'

THE ONLY way the HSE will lose €50 million with the new consultants’ contract is if private beds in public hospitals are unoccupied by private patients for a significant time, Health Minister Mary Harney has said.

She told the Dáil that, “I do not expect a €50 million loss, or any material loss, to public hospitals as a result of the new contract.” The HSE estimated the €50 million loss due to changes in the consultant contracts which will lead to insurers not making certain payments.

“Consultants holding the public-only, type A contract do not undertake any private work and no patient admitted under the care of such a consultant can be accorded private status,” she said. “Public hospitals may not, therefore, impose a private accommodation charge where a patient is admitted under the care of a type A consultant, nor may another consultant involved in the treatment of such a patient charge a fee.”

But Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said that “if a person is admitted under a particular consultant who is on-call on the night, who is a type A consultant, that patient will be a public patient and that income will be lost to the hospital.”

The Minister said “a hospital only gets a fee for a patient if he or she is in a designated bed and only approximately 20 per cent are private beds”. The “980 consultants on the new contract who are allowed private practice, plus the 400 consultants remaining on the old contract, will continue to admit and treat sufficient numbers of patients, so there will be little, if any, loss of private bed income to the hospitals concerned”, she said.