Varadkar ‘putting patients at mercy of profits’

The health minister has been accused of placing patients at the mercy of profit margins after admitting he is in favour of contracting out the management of under- performing public hospitals to private companies.

Opposition parties and doctors rounded on Leo Varadkar yesterday in the wake of a speech in which he said it should be open to the CEO of a hospital group to transfer management of a hospital to a private provider in cases where hospitals “consistently under-perform in terms of clinical outcomes, patient experience, and financial management”.

Mr Varadkar, who was addressing the Institute of Chartered Accountants, also said hospital groups should essentially be able to conduct business in the manner of semi-state companies “outside the constraints of public service rules”.

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) said this approach would “downgrade public service and pave the way for privatisation of our essential health services”.

“Such policy has been a disaster in other countries and we only have to look across the water at the UK to see the consequences of this kind of initiative,” said IMO president Dr Ray Walley. “In the US, corporate medicine has led to more expensive care that is less efficient, with poorer overall outcomes.”

Sinn Féin health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said he was “aghast to think of how this would affect patients, who would now be at the mercy of a profit margin” and he called for a commitment to a public ownership model of health care.

Fianna Fáil’s health spokesman, Billy Kelleher, called Mr Varadkar’s stance “an extraordinary agenda that even Mrs Thatcher would not have dared to advance”.

“It is a fundamental undermining of the public health system and it shows clearly what Fine Gael really has in store for the country if it is returned to power next year. Meanwhile, the Labour Party remains completely mute,” Mr Kelleher said.

In a robust response to the criticism, Mr Varadkar said while the vast bulk of work “will always be conducted by the public sector”, where hospitals are “consistently failing we need radical solutions”. He said this had been done in places such as Britain “with some success and patients have benefited as a result”.

“Fianna Fáil want to retain the HSE and merely pump more money into a system they created which is not working,” said Mr Varadkar. “It’s the same old Fianna Fáil. Sinn Féin thinks we attract more consultants and better managers by cutting their pay and taxing them more. Both parties offer a lot of criticism but no solutions.”