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

I welcome the fact that there will be a review, which we requested. There are concerns about this. It has been brought to my attention by some health care providers in the private sector that there is now competition in certain areas in trying to attract private patients and treating them on public beds. The concept of the 20% designation in public hospitals with treatment of private patients was originally a historical hangover from the time when it was a sweetener given to retain consultants we were unable to pay to keep them in service. However, subsequently, this has been breached continually, and it is not just me saying this. The bottom line is that Mr. O'Brien, the director general of the HSE, said that the 2013 Act has made a farce of the application of the rules restricting the level of private practice senior doctors can carry out in public hospitals. In an e-mail to the Minister's predecessor, the director general said large voluntary teaching hospitals were in some instances breaking the rules in how they went about recruiting consultants in the context of attracting and being able to guarantee that more than the 20% of private patients would be treated in public beds. Overall, we could now have private patients receiving preferential treatment, and more of them receiving preferential treatment ahead of public patients, to bolster hospital budgets.

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