Simon Harris 'fed up of subsidising private insurance firms’ profits' with beds in public hospitals

Minister for Health Simon Harris has said he is “fed up subsidising private insurance companies’ profits and we're not going to do that any more”.

Minister for Health Simon Harris has said he is “fed up of subsidising private insurance companies’ profits and we're not going to do that any more”.

He was commenting on plans announced by the Government on Wednesday that hospital consultants who commit to working only in public hospitals will be offered a salary of up to €250,000.

From next summer all medical specialists will be appointed under a new Sláintecare consultant contract which will not allow private practice.

“Every single day, today, in Ireland, in our hospitals on average 15% of the beds are being taken up by private practice and yet there will be hundreds of people, public patients, who can't afford private health insurance, perhaps elderly people, waiting for admission,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

This happens, he said, “because there's not enough other beds, 15% of our beds that the taxpayer has funded are being used for the benefit of private insurance companies.”

The Minister said that the plan to have consultants commit to working only in public hospitals is “the first time any one has tried to end the two-tier health service.”

From a patient’s perspective “absolutely they're going to need to have confidence over a period of time that they no longer need their private health insurance, they're not going to do that overnight.

Many families struggle to pay private health insurance, they don't have it because they want it, they have it because they think they need it, I can understand it.

“We do have a situation in Ireland where 45% of people today are getting hospital operations in 12 weeks or less, 30% are seeing our public consultant in 10 weeks or less.

"But if we want to do better on that the only way we'll do better on that is by hiring more consultants and the only way we'll hire more consultants is to pay them more and ask them to work differently.

“That's what these proposals are about.”