Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister must get rid of any preordained views he may have on health and the outcomes of the debate on the broader health services. He must invest in the National Treatment Purchase Fund in the short and medium term while we try to expand the capacity in the public hospital system but, more importantly, he must address an issue that is now arising in the public hospital system. Hospital managers and CEOs of hospitals are head-hunting for private patients. Private patients undoubtedly are being put ahead of public patients in public hospitals to fulfil their stretched budgets. That is an issue the Minister must examine thoroughly. I have major concerns that those who have private health insurance and who should be treated in a private facility are now in public hospitals because there is a fee per bed in this regard. That is simply inexcusable. It is wrong morally, ethically and for every other reason. Public hospitals, by and large, should be used for public patients and only if private patients cannot be treated in a private hospital should they be treated in a public hospital. I ask the Minister to visit that issue.

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