Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations this morning. The information to hand suggests that most procedures that take place in private hospitals are elective, non-emergency procedures. There are very few accident and emergency departments in private hospitals and of those many are not open 24-7. What are the most common procedures in the witnesses' hospitals? Are they hip and knee replacements? How many inpatients do they treat annually? What is the average length of stay? I would be interested in their comments on the complex cases being dealt with and the burden of complex cases on the public hospitals, for example, some people may go into a private hospital but because of the complexity of their cases they are often transported in an ambulance to a public hospital which adds pressure to the public system. I would be very interested in hearing the witnesses' views on that and how this committee can work to resolve that problem. How many referrals do they get from the public system and what is the cumulative cost of that? Could the witnesses mention the complexity of those cases that are referred to the private hospitals?