HSE €500k out of pocket as forms are left unsigned

The chair of the HSE West Forum has described as “absolutely outrageous” the failure of one consultant to sign forms that would release €500,000 to the cash-strapped HSE.

Cllr Padraig Conneely (FG) was responding to an admission by the HSE’s assistant national director for finance, Liam Minihan, that a consultant at Galway University Hospitals had yet to sign forms for private insurers that would release €496,000 to the HSE. Yesterday, the HSE confirmed €15.1m has been outstanding from hospitals in the West for more than a year due to consultants’ failure to sign forms for insurers.

Mr Conneely called for the unnamed consultant to be denied private beds at the Galway University Hospitals, which comprise of University Hospital Galway and Merlin Park Hospital, until the matter is resolved.