Madam, – The report that University Hospital Galway (UHG) will suffer further cuts (“Galway hospital to pull out of cancer plan”, June 11th) surely raises a question as to what exactly the priority of this Government is when it comes to spending on health.
The report tells us that UHG will have to close 60 beds and this is on top of 70 beds lost already since January, yet we are told the hospital has the highest uptake of the services provided by the National Treatment Purchase Fund, which uses taxpayers’ money to pay for the treatment of public patients in private hospitals where the capacity to treat is not available in the public system. But how can it be justified to continue with this practice while closing public beds? Surely all available money should be used to support the public system rather than the private one?
The way things are going, all that will be left of UHG is a reception lobby through which public patients are shuffled on to the local private clinic. And maybe that is the plan, the privatisation of the health service by stealth.
Any chance the Minister for Health might come clean and talk to us about what precisely is going on here? It is after all, our service and our money.
– Yours, etc,