Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Woods. I have a few comments. As I am from the same part of the country as Ms Cowan, I understand the difficulties involved in the mid-west. Most consultants that I am aware of work extremely hard. They work in excess of their hours, as Ms Cowan has said, and give service way over their contract requirements. The issue raised on the programme is that there is a cohort of consultants who do not fulfil their contracts. I know there is deep frustration among consultants who work hard that this is the case. If we come back to the programme, I think the frustration among the public is that one has to wait an inordinate length of time to get into the system. One's outpatient appointment may be six, 12 or 18 months away, before one's need is assessed. Once one's need is assessed, one would hope that the treatment is based on need. Many patients feel that if they go privately to see a consultant, they will skip that initial six, 12 or 18-month delay and will have their need assessed by a consultant. They may then be admitted to a hospital in a public bed but will pay the consultant privately or they may come in through the public system and be a completely public patient. That queue-jumping is a frustration people have. There is a fast track. If one goes privately, one may then be treated more quickly as a public patient or maybe as a private patient. I have come across places where people have come into an emergency department, said they wish to be a public patient and yet end up being treated as a private patient because they have inadvertently signed a form when they did not have full knowledge of what they were signing for. They then realise that the insurance company has been billed a substantial amount for what they thought was public care.

The frustration is that the public-private mix is not working. As Mr. Woods and Ms Cody have referred to, the Sláintecare report attempts to untangle private care in public hospitals. There is a difficulty if that drives some of our consultants out of the public system and out of the country because their income will be limited if they are purely public consultants. The delegates might address and keep in mind some of those issues. I call Deputy Margaret Murphy O'Mahony who will be followed by Deputy Bernard J. Durkan.