Sir, – Your religious affairs correspondent (August 8th) understates the role of the Catholic Church in the Irish health system. The private healthcare sector includes so-called voluntary hospitals and other facilities, contrary to what was implied. Dublin’s maternity hospitals are private entities, not HSE run, as stated. So the new Catholic code for healthcare will have a wider reach than suggested.
To say that “relevant healthcare facilities are not run by the bishops but by religious congregations” is to ignore recent developments.
Since 1983, canon law has provided for the establishment of corporations to ensure that hospitals and other facilities owned by religious congregations are safeguarded in terms of ownership and ethos. Such ecclesiastical entities, often in tandem with civil companies, have been set up in Ireland by the Bon Secours and the Sisters of Mercy. The Mercy University Hospital, for example, is owned by Mercy Care South, a charitable body under the Charities Regulator and a “public juridical person” under the Bishop of Cork and Ross. Other designated supervisory authorities are the conference of bishops and the Vatican: the latter requires annual reports showing evidence of corporate compliance with church teaching.
Finally, it might have been pertinent to ask how the Minister for Health’s tweet to the Bishop of Elphin, described by your correspondent as a “check to authority”, squares with his (the Minister’s) decision to endow a new build for the National Maternity Hospital – a private Catholic entity set to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of another private Catholic entity – to the tune of €300 million.
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This company, St Vincent’s Healthcare Group, is owned by the Religious Sisters of Charity. The group is currently setting up a new entity, “St Vincent’s”, which is slated to take ownership of the “new NMH” (and the nuns’ other hospitals).
Known unknowns include whether the governance charter of St Vincent’s will require its four hospitals to adhere to the congregation’s ethos, and whether the new entity will be incorporated as a public juridical person. – Yours, etc,
MARIE O’CONNOR,
Dublin 7.