Getting staff for private hospitals ‘almost impossible’

IT WILL be almost impossible to find the medical staff for the private hospitals planned by the Government on the sites of eight public hospitals, the head of a new €130 million medical clinic warned yesterday.

Chairman of the board of the Hermitage Medical Clinic, Niall O’Carroll, said the supply of medical staff was already extremely limited and the development of co-located hospitals would make an already bad situation worse.

“Our worry is that too much of our time and capital would be spent competing for these scarce resources and not enough in meeting patients’ needs,” said Mr O’Carroll following the official opening of the 126-bed hospital in west Dublin by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.