Minister extends Rotunda deadline for data on private work by public-only consultants

Health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill was speaking after she officially opened an extension at Mallow General Hospital in Co Cork, where she met patient Betty O'Sullivan from Glanworth and her husband Pat. Picture: Brian Lougheed

The deadline for Ireland’s largest maternity hospital to provide the Government with an audit of private work conducted by consultants on public-only contracts has been extended.

Health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said the information she has requested from the Rotunda on the provision of private care by consultants on public-only contracts there will now be accepted later this week.

“I expect to hear from them today. I have not heard from them yet,” Ms Carroll MacNeill told journalists at the opening of a new wing at Mallow General Hospital in Cork today.

However, she has given some grace on the initial deadline of 5pm today “out of respect” after a senior person in the Rotunda had a family bereavement. She said: 

I’m more interested in the answer than the timing of the answer. 

“But I expect the Rotunda to respond. They are a professional organisation.” 

Jack Chambers: 'Escalation' if Rotunda fails to comply

Her government colleague, public expenditure minister Jack Chambers told RTÉ today that there would be “an escalation” if the Rotunda failed to comply.

The health minister said that it will not be possible for the State and tax payers to fund any entity, including hospitals, which fail to comply with contracts they sign and agreements they make with the State.

All voluntary hospitals, which receive more than 90% of funding from the State, are expected to comply with State requirements, like the financial management system which is being introduced, she said.

Public contracts must also be actively complied with.

So doctors who are contracted to provide care at night and during weekends are expected to be rostered do so, she said.

It is important that everyone who signed a public contract is actively complying with that contract as that is how waiting lists will be reduced and services will be improved, she said.

“The Rotunds is governed by a board that I don't appoint, that don't report to me. And it is independent, although it receives 90% of its funding from the State,” she said.

The minister said contracts are central to ensuring that there is governance over that public money being spent.

'Compliance with their contract'

“I hope the Rotunda will come back in compliance with government policy, in compliance with their contract. I expect that they will,” the health minister said.

“I will see what their response is, reflect on it appropriately and see what the next steps are as appropriate.” 

Contracts signed by the consultants and the hospital are watertight legally, with no possible permission for the provision of private care unless authorised by the State, Ms Carroll MacNeill said, despite recent speculation that they were not.

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And there is no evidence of a contagion effect or private care being provided by consultants on public-only contracts at other hospitals, she said. A number of consultants chose to sign well-paid contracts with the State, committing to only providing public care.

Last week, the Rotunda refused to back down from this position, requesting a meeting with the Government to explain why it was choosing to allow consultants being paid by the State to provide public-only care, to also care separately for private patients at the hospital.

But the health minister refused and gave a deadline of 5pm today for the Rotunda to provide an audit of its private work.