State to ask private sector for health service aid, says Harney

THE State will increasingly look to the private sector to provide crucial health services for public patients, Tánaiste Mary Harney said at the weekend.

She has also promised to end the situation where public patients spend hours, or days, on trolleys waiting for treatment and said hospitals should be paid on a results-basis in the future.

“People are entitled to expect better”, the Health Minister told delegates at the annual conference of the Progressive Democrats in Cork on Saturday.