Reilly ‘cannot force’ VHI to provide cover for private hospital

IT would be a “terrible tragedy” if the country’s newest private hospital was forced to close but it was not in his gift to instruct the VHI to provide cover, Health Minister James Reilly said yesterday.

Commenting on the €90 million Cork Medical Centre (CMC) where staff contracts have been temporarily suspended following the VHI’s refusal to come on board, Dr Reilly said the health insurer was insisting it had enough private beds in the region.

“I’ve met with the VHI and they are insistent that they feel they have elegant sufficiency of private beds in the area,” he said.

“They have no waiting list they say for private care and other than highlight what I believe would be a terrible tragedy to lose a private hospital of this nature, there is very little more that I can do.”

Although state-owned, the minister said the VHI had its own board, its own operation and “I can’t instruct them”.

However, he indicated he would like to see an end to the VHI’s dominant role in the marketplace.

“It [CMC] does throw into very sharp focus the difficulties created by the dominant position of the VHI and if they decline to cover an institution, it’s virtually impossible for them to operate. If they were a third of the size they are, that would not present a difficulty. I would like to see them broken up yes.”

Dr Reilly confirmed the Department of Health has gone to tender for advice on “how best to deal with the dominant role of the VHI” which has 60% of the private health insurance market.

He also said they were looking at reducing the size of the Health Service Executive (HSE) as well as changing the make-up of its board.

“I don’t think this will be done on a political basis, it will be done on what’s the best thing to do to meet the needs of the HSE and our goal is to see it become a much smaller organisation.”

However, he said this did not mean they were going back to the regions. “We’re not going back to the local health boards, we’re not going into duplication of roles and managers etc etc,” Dr Reilly said.

In relation to co-location, Dr Reilly said while Fine Gael had always been opposed to the notion of using public hospital grounds for private facilities, as Minister for Health he now had “additional responsibilities vis-à-vis existing contracts and litigation and the legal situation around that”. “I’m not prepared to say anymore,” he said.

However, he said he would “certainly… be interested in exploring the potential for new hospital facilities on those sites that might be managed by outside management and that could be in public ownership”.

Dr Reilly said if he had to “change one thing and one thing alone” it would be to put an end to trolleys in emergency departments (EDs) and to end waiting lists, but that neither could be done in isolation. He is however putting a team together to help plan for the “predictable surge” that occurs in EDs every winter.