The Minister of State for Health and Children, Ms Mary Hanafin, said she shared the view of Mr Liam Cosgrave (FG) that the interests of patients must be central to any hospital practice.
Mr Cosgrave said that in recent weeks around 10 hospitals had been fined almost £2 million for apparent overstaying by patients. It was worrying that there seemed to be a trend towards not giving patient needs priority consideration. It would be potentially dangerous if doctors had to look over their shoulders at hospital administrators in terms of determining how quickly patients should be put through the system. He hoped the Minister's Department was not penalising hospitals on financial grounds because patient care and welfare had been put first.
Ms Hanafin said she wished to reject the suggestion that the current system placed financial considerations ahead of patient welfare. The "case mix" system used clinical information which was based on the actual practice of medicine in Irish hospitals to determine a proportion of the funding to be received by them.