The board of the Rotunda Hospital has climbed down from its position that public-only consultants be allowed do private work after Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill threatened to withdraw funding from the maternity hospital.
After a short meeting on Monday evening, the board of governors of the Rotunda disclosed that it has “unanimously decided to bring the hospital’s arrangements into line with the Government’s policy on the terms of the public-only consultant contract”.
It brought to an end a five-day stand-off between the hospital and Carroll MacNeill on the issue. It arose when master of the Rotunda Prof Seán Daly told an Oireachtas health committee hearing last week that consultants on public-only contracts were allowed to treat private patients at the hospital, despite a direction not to do so. The Minister and the HSE said that in doing so, the consultants were in breach of their contracts.
In the statement the board said the threat of withdrawal of funding was something it could not countenance because of the potential consequences for women and babies.
READ MORE
“The board is confident that the safety and clinical outcomes for all women and their babies is of the highest standard in the Rotunda Hospital,” the statement said.
“The board continues to believe in the importance of choice for women and that a compromise solution for maternity care should be sought through dialogue with the Department of Health and the HSE.”
Carroll MacNeill welcomed the development. “All of us, together, can now focus on continuing to deliver the very best care for all women and their babies and implement reforms that strengthen our public health service for all,” she said.
Monday’s developments came after the Minister turned down an invitation for a meeting with the board of the hospital, with the Department of Health saying no such meeting would be agreed to until the Rotunda backed down.
The HSE has requested the names of consultants who are carrying out private practice on public-only contracts, and the names of the person who gave them permission to continue such practice.
The HSE also sought the number of babies who have been delivered by these consultants, and the number of pregnant women currently seeing the consultants for private care.
The amount of money the Rotunda has billed or claimed for, either from mothers themselves or from private health insurance companies, has also been requested.
The board wrote to the Minister on Monday evening to inform her that it had acquiesced to her request. It is also understood that it has sent correspondence to the HSE responding to its requests for information.
There was some uncertainty earlier as to the timing of the delivery of that information to the HSE after one of the senior personnel at the Rotunda received news of a family bereavement during the weekend.
Earlier on Monday Carroll MacNeill had said if the Rotunda failed to comply with the requirements, the Department of Health and the HSE would look at the service-level contract and see what options were available to obtain compliance.
“I’m speaking in generalities here now, but it’s not going to be possible for the State or the taxpayer to fund any entity, whether it’s the health entity or any other entity, and to have a contract and an agreement and for that not to be complied with,” she said.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin also said on Monday that consultants who had signed up to public-only contracts had to fulfil them, describing this as a “a very reasonable ask from Government”.
“The bottom line there is the consultants voluntarily signed up to the public-only contract and many of us are very surprised at the turn of events.”
Martin added: “We can’t have a situation where the entire edifice which was negotiated between the representatives of consultants and the [last] government ... that would somehow be, overnight and behind the scenes, undermined.
The chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Health, Social Democrats TD Pádraig Rice, said the decision of the hospital board was a “bare minimum”.
“It is concerning that this unilateral breach of the hospital’s legal obligations was defended so trenchantly for so long,” he said.
