Social justice groups issue warning over health service inequality

BUILDING private and public hospitals side-by-side will lead to further health service inequality and undermine fundamental values, social justice groups warned today.

The Adelaide Hospital Society and the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice heavily criticised the Government’s health care reform plans in a new policy document, The Irish Health Service: Vision, Values, Reality.

They argue that plans for hospital co-location, which involves the transferring of private beds in public hospitals to private facilities, would increase the gulf between the rich and poor in Ireland’s health care system.

Both organisations are calling for health care reform to include a halt to privatisation, the wide extension of medical-card eligibility, greater medical accountability and a political commitment to end health inequality.

“From a long-term perspective, a particularly worrying element of this proposal is that it promotes the perception and the reality that health care is just another commodity to be bought and sold,” director of the Adelaide Hospital Society Dr Fergus O’Ferrall said. “The building of private hospitals on the grounds of public hospitals would entrench the existing two-tier system of hospital care and make it all the more difficult in the future to bring about change in that system.”

The aim of the hospital co-location initiative is to enable private patients to move from public hospitals to private facilities on the same site, thereby freeing up significant capacity for public patients.

Director of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice Fr Tony O’Riordan SJ added: “We are now at a crossroads in Irish health care reform. It is essential that the politicians who are currently engaged in negotiating a new programme for government should commit to a new vision and a clear set of values for our health service which will ensure that every person is treated on the basis of their need rather than their financial status.”