HSE paying to use private Beacon facilities

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) has been paying for the use of cancer facilities at the private Beacon Hospital in south Dublin after a key piece of equipment at a public hospital in the capital broke down.

Patients due to receive radiotherapy were re-routed to the Beacon in recent weeks while the linear accelerator machine at the Mater Hospital was out of order. The Beacon has also treated patients with a range of medical conditions from Beaumont Hospital in the city after that hospital became swamped with cases that were building into a backlog.

This is in addition to the public patients from various parts of the country who have been referred to the Beacon under the National Treatment Purchase Fund, chiefly for orthopaedic surgery and ENT (ear, nose and throat) procedures.

The growing use of the Beacon’s private facilities by public patients since the hospital opened last October emerged as the debate over the Government’s support for the growth of private facilities deepened.

Opposition parties yesterday restated their objection to the hand-over of public hospital grounds for the construction of private hospitals and said the proposal would be dropped if they formed the next government.

Performing the official opening of the new cancer centre at the Beacon yesterday, Health Minister Mary Harney reiterated her support for the proposal which is currently the subject of discussions between the HSE and five private consortiums interested in building eight private hospitals on public grounds.

“One of the things I am very conscious of is this debate about public and private. For me, I just see patients,” she said. “More facilities of this kind in our country, both in the Dublin area and elsewhere, have the capacity to relieve the pressure on the public health care system.”

The Beacon’s cancer centre is the first in the country to house all aspects of diagnosis, treatment and after-care under one roof.

The hospital also claims to have the most sophisticated radiotherapy equipment in the country.

Private health insurers VHI and Vivas have already agreed to cover policy holders using the Beacon’s facilities and discussions are also under way with Quinn Healthcare, formerly Bupa.