Put voluntary hospitals under state control

Now that the furore about top up payments in the public service, especially in the voluntary hospitals, has abated, it is perhaps time to look at the bigger picture and examine the voluntary hospitals in greater detail.

It is not pretty to see the sweet shop in a children’s hospital being raided to pay the managerial staff, thereby depriving sick children of facilities.

However that sum of money is only a drop in the ocean compared to the expenditure of many hundreds of millions of euro of taxpayers’ money by the voluntary hospitals in an apparently unsupervised manner.

I assume the label “voluntary” stems from their ability to spend their government allocation as they please, without supervision. Isn’t it time to bring these voluntary hospitals under direct government control?

Seán O’Sullivan

Crossabeg

Co Wexford