Recognition of recruitment crisis welcome, but proposals create a €650 million annual funding hole in public hospitals

• For cash-starved public hospitals and suffering patients, measures as outlined risk making a bad situation even worse  
• Government yet to explain where the funding for the required capacity expansion to address deficits and demand will come from 
• Solving the recruitment crisis requires engagement and joined-up thinking rather than electioneering

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has welcomed the formal recognition by Government of the consultant recruitment crisis and the need to restore parity but warned that proposals outlined today will create an annual funding hole of €650 million in cash-starved public hospitals and wreak havoc on patients. 

Commenting this evening, the IHCA said the proposal as put forward had been tried twice before, failing both times. 

Public hospitals rely on the €650 million annual income they currently get from health insurance. The IHCA said the impact of removing this income will be devastating, further undermining underfunded and under-resourced public hospital services.  

Despite the Government’s support for removing insurance income from public hospitals, the IHCA highlighted that the Government has failed to bring forward any proposals on how the additional funding to replace this income loss of €6.5 billion over the next decade will be raised. The Government is failing to admit this could mean increased taxation or other new charges. Neither has it explained where the funding for the required capacity expansion to address the existing deficits and increasing demand will come from. 

Cash starved public hospitals without adequate capacity for the timely provision of care, which has resulted in excess of 120,000 patients being treated on trolleys annually and one million people on waiting lists will exacerbate the existing medical brain drain. 

Since 2012, the discrimination against new consultants and the capacity deficits have resulted in hundreds of specialist consultant vacancies and doctors leaving the Irish health service. Over 500 or one in five of all permanent consultant posts are unfilled. This will deteriorate further due to the Government’s proposal which perpetuates the discrimination against hospital consultants who we need to retain and recruit. 

According to IHCA President, Dr. Donal O’Hanlon:

“Today’s proposals seek to deflect attention away from the Government’s failure to address the overwhelming capacity deficits its policies have caused since 2012. 

“This proposal will wreak havoc on our public hospital services. The removal of €650 million each year in insurance income from public hospitals will create an extreme two tier system, a more underfunded public hospital system in contrast with a functioning well resourced private hospital sector. Public hospitals are already struggling to cope with the fall-out of the Government’s failure to invest in the required number of additional beds and to fill vacant permanent consultant posts over the past eight years.

“Giving up health insurance income in public hospitals may be a populist thing to propose but the maths around this proposal simply do not add up. 

“By year end the HSE is on course to record an overspend of €400 million for 2019. In addition to plugging this annual deficit, the Government has today signed off on a loss of €650 million per year in income, when implemented, from already financially squeezed public hospitals that the population depends on for care. 

“Our acute public hospitals do not have enough beds or consultants, no one disputes that. Every day these are the two main reasons why patient access to care is being severely restricted. 

“Recently, it was revealed that chemotherapy for children battling with cancer is being postponed due to lack of beds and staff. This rationing of essential urgent hospital care has unfortunately become the norm across our public hospital services due to the growing capacity deficits that are not being addressed as required.  

“The Government’s response to these urgent issues is to ignore the practical and workable solutions put forward by Consultants, which would be effective in reducing the unacceptable reliance on trolleys to treat over 120,000 admitted patients annually and end the record waiting lists of over 1 million people who need public hospital care. 

“Today’s proposals will do nothing for public hospital patients; only make a bad situation even worse. 

“Our hospitals need increased funding, not less. They need practical effective solutions and not flawed ideological policies. The Government needs to start working for patients, not playing politics with patients’ right to access care”.

ENDS 
For media enquiries:
 
Lauren Murphy – lauren@pr360.ie- 083 801 5917
Barry Murphy – barry@pr360.ie – 087 266 9878