Sir, – Capacity in intensive-care units in public hospitals has not been reached at any point in this crisis. And yet the Government is squandering €115 million per month in order to prevent independent hospitals from performing their duty to the patients they serve. This is an extravagance borne out of a political ideology rather than a public health emergency.
Those of us who work in the independent healthcare sector have been ready and willing to do all we can to help and treat patients suffering from this appalling disease. The fact is, however, that we simply have been surplus to requirement. Our colleagues in public hospitals who have been dealing with this pandemic have worked heroically, no doubt, but that is no reason for denying our patients the right to access the care that they require.
Dr Anthony O'Connor (Letters, May 14th) does not want to relinquish control of the independent hospitals until the pandemic is brought to heel. However, he acknowledges that the work carried out in these hospitals is "urgent" and "vital". If that is the case, maintaining empty beds at enormous cost to the taxpayer is immoral, unethical, an example of economic incompetence, and nothing short of a national scandal.
The independent healthcare sector is not the progenitor of the titanic problems in public health. On the contrary, like it or not, it is a release valve that alleviates pressure on public hospital resources and waiting lists.
Keeping independent bed capacity under wraps in case of a surge is a flimsy logic. There is a point, after all, where prudent planning becomes fiscal madness. We have passed that particular fork in the road.
It is time to allow independent hospitals, and their staff, who work just as tirelessly as their colleagues in public hospitals, to return immediately to work and provide a service to those that desperately need it. – Yours, etc,
TURLOUGH
O’DONNELL, MD, FRCS
Associate Professor
in Clinical Surgery,
University College Dublin;
Consultant Orthopaedic
Surgeon,
Beacon Hospital,
Sandyford,
Dublin 18.