Consultants line up in bid to stall CUH plan

SENIOR medics and management at two leading acute hospitals have united in their opposition to proposals for a new private co-located hospital at Cork University Hospital (CUH).

Consultants at the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) and the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital (SIVUH) claim the €250 million Beacon Medical Group (BMG) co-location project does not offer the best model of care.

This is the first time since BMG was awarded the contract that clinicians have publicly questioned whether it is in the best interest of patients. Previous criticisms of the project by members of the public and Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin relate mainly to additional traffic volumes they expect the new hospital to generate.

In a statement issued yesterday, Paul Sweeney, chair of the consultant medical board at MUH and Dr Neil O’Donovan, chair of the consultant medical board at SIVUH, said the concentration of private and public medical infrastructure on the site of CUH “will not produce optimal care for the people of Cork and Munster”.

“The people of Cork and beyond have benefited from the provision of an alternative to the monolithic approach to healthcare that will result from locating all services in the grounds at CUH,” the consultants said.

They believe the two voluntary hospitals “with their long tradition of focusing on meeting the acute hospital needs of the people of this region” offer a balanced public/private patient mix.

“The private facility at CUH would impact on this balance, thereby reinforcing the two-tier system,” the consultants said.

Their opinion is at odds with consultant colleagues at CUH, who are backing the co-location project and who are already on record as saying that without such a development “it will not be possible to serve the people of the southern region optimally in terms of acute hospital-based healthcare delivery”.

However, consultants at MUH and SIVUH argue co-location is unnecessary, given an alternative model of acute hospital-based healthcare has already been proposed. Their opposition to the CUH project is not unexpected given the proposed alternative involves an amalgamation of MUH and SIVUH.

The amalgamation depends upon the recommendations of the much-delayed review of acute hospital services in the Health Service Executive South. Both hospitals expect the review to support their proposal and believe the amalgamated hospital would create the required additional capacity.

Pauline Cullen, commercial director for BMG, said the new co-located hospital will cater for both public and private patients and she said the idea that it would perpetuate a two-tier system was “a nonsense”.

“As long as the capacity is there, it doesn’t matter who we treat, whether it’s a public or private patient,” she said.