Co-location puts profit before people

I AM amazed that plans to construct a much needed extra parking facility for Cork University Hospital (CUH), and facilities to allow large helicopters to land with casualties, were set aside to allow a private healthcare company to build a co-location hospital in the hospital grounds.

The Government suggests these co-located hospitals will provide beds for public patients, implying that this is their purpose. I suspect the reason these private companies want to co-locate with public hospitals is because they want access to staff whose expensive training the public paid for. Perhaps they also want access to medical equipment and to a supply of ‘bread and butter’ public patients when private patients aren’t available.

Beacon Healthcare, which wants to co-locate at CUH, is 25% owned by a US healthcare company. Unlike public health services, the primary concern of private healthcare companies is for their shareholders, not for the public good. Co-location disadvantages the public by occupying land that should be used for the public health service.