VHI private clinics delay acute care for patients

AN emergency medicine consultant has expressed alarm that patients needing acute hospital care have had their treatment delayed as a result of presenting initially at the VHI’s new private casualty clinics in Dublin.

The VHI confirmed yesterday that more than 100 of the 7,000 patients treated at the SwiftCare Clinic in Dundrum since it opened six months ago had to be transferred to a public hospital’s accident and emergency department.

The VHI’s second clinic in Dublin City University in Glasnevin opened this month but as yet has had no discernible impact on Beaumont Hospital’s A&E.