Sláintecare consultant contracts mean ‘private care in public hospitals will end’, says minister

Minister of Health Stephen Donnelly said the Midwest region needs more hospital beds. Picture: Brendan Gleeson

The end of private care in HSE public hospitals could come sooner than expected due to the high uptake of a new consultants contract, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said.

The latest figures show 49% of consultants working in the public services are now on the Sláintecare contract, which does not allow for private patients, he told the Irish Medical Organisation conference.

“The contract on its own means that private care in public hospitals will end,” he said.

“We are now at half the consultant workforce, and I think we will get to a point soon enough where there simply aren’t enough people on the old contracts left to provide the end-to-end care [for private patients].”

Mr Donnelly added: “I think we are going to see an end to private care in public hospitals quicker than some might have thought.”

The contract means, he said, more patients being seen at evenings and over weekends, with consultants’ hours structured across seven days.

He welcomed the Irish Medical Organisation’s support for the contract.

“I think it is ahead of a lot of expectations,” he also told reporters at the conference.

It means public hospitals are for public patients, it means the waiting lists will continue to fall, and consultants are available longer than they would have traditionally been.

Hospital overcrowding tends to spike on Mondays and Tuesdays currently, he said.

“That is because there hasn’t been discharges over the weekends,” he said, adding that all staff are needed — not only doctors.

On Thursday, the minister launched measures to address overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).

ON Friday, UHL once again had the highest number of patients — with 85 people left without a bed — among 555 nationally.

Mr Donnelly defended his plan against claims it is “a sticking plaster”, as claimed by families and patients in the Midwest Hospital Campaign.

“The region needs more beds and we are adding beds at an unprecedented level,” he said.

“I announced 86 more beds which we want available this year.”

He said these beds and two planned 96-bed blocks, one of which will provide 71 news beds along with replacement beds by 2025 and a second where enabling works have begun, are equivalent to a new hospital.

He repeated his call for “real leadership” from consultants in UHL, saying he also told managers: “I’m not satisfied with the level of reform” there.

“They [consultants] have been through a tough time in terms of the reconfiguration in 2009, they’ve been under consistent pressure and I acknowledge that,” he said.