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PRIVATE HOSPITAL CONSULTANTS have said they are concerned about the ethical dilemma caused by the temporary HSE contracts allowing them to work on the frontline with Covid-19 patients.
Approximately 500 private consultants will receive temporary HSE locum contracts to cover their work during the Covid-19 crisis period.
However, consultants have said these contracts will have a negative impact on the patients they are treating at the moment in private practices.
Under the current terms in the contract, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said consulting rooms will be forced to shut to current and future private outpatients.
“This will have considerable knock-on detrimental impacts on the quality of care received by these patients and by all patients accessing hospital services,” the IHCA said in a statement.
The types of treatments in these consulting rooms include patients with possible cancer symptoms, post-operative wounds and issues with blocked catheters.
Dr Oisin O’Connell, a respiratory consultant in the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork and members of the IHCA committee, said the contract would prevent private patients presenting with new medical issues from being treated.
“Private only consultants believe the solution to this issue lies in a contractual arrangement which enables these consultants meet their obligations under the proposed HSE temporary locum contracts but also permits them to continue to treat their private patients outside of their HSE contract hours,” O’Connell said today in a statement.
On 30 March, the government announced it had reached an agreement with private hospitals across the country to use their facilities for treating patients.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1′s Today with Sean O’Rourke, Dr O’Connell said consultants first received these contracts this morning from the HSE.
“What’s landed on our table this morning is essentially an ethical dilemma for anyone working in full time private practice,” he said.
O’Connell said there were two options – to sign the contract and cancel all clinic patients and discharge those awaiting future procedures to public waiting lists.
He said he will have to cancel his 2,500 patients and refer them to public hospitals if he signs the current HSE contract.
“I want to work frontline. I want to look after Covid patients, but I’m left in the ethical dilemma that if I do that and accept the contract, I have to cancel all my clinic patients,” he said.
I’m hoping that the HSE will engage with the IHCA to find a way we can continue to engage with continuity with our patients and also work front and centre.
“I can only assume that this was an unintended consequence that wasn’t foreseen with all of this.”
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The amount of hedgehogs and their babies dying because the council are strimming hedgerows is shocking.
Follow The Hedgehog Society. It’s illegal to do it this time of year but sure they do what they want with not a thought for wildlife.
@Deirdre McDonnell: it’s not illegal for them. It’s usually done under the guise of ‘road safety’. However, it is bad management on their behalf. Most of it is not required.
@Deirdre McDonnell: It’s hilarious that we’re now looking to ‘protect’ tiny runs of boundary growth when there’s 1000′s of hectors of ‘potential behind them.
Hopefully people can start treating this lovely island with more respect.
We could start with banning the unnecessary trimming of beautiful grasses and wild flower along our parks and roads. They even do it along the canals now, where there is zero traffic. It results in an ugly mess of dead grass, with not a flower in sight.
My local council doesn’t do that, we have plenty of wildflowers and butterflies and bees. Surprised that they’re so shortsighted. But they’re probably afraid that a homeless person might catch a few hours of sleep there.
Surely noteworthy has it wrong, Ireland is a heaven for flora and fauna…I’d never believe we could be that bad at protecting of wildlife, like its not like we have bait diggers tearing up our SPA SAC mudflats where wading birds get their much needed rest and food, or our dog walkers letting pooches and fluffy off their lead where ground nesting birds breed and raise their vulnerable young….or I fully sure farmer Brown is letting that blacket bog that he raped and pillaged over the last century is letting it replenish…no you must be wrong noteworthy if you think our fine government’s would let this happen..
We could start by holding the OPW to account for REPEATEDLY breaching EU environmental law and burying rivers in concrete and dredging up salmonid waterways all over the country.
Arrogant Pr1cks.
Ah yes, the randomly appointed nature 2000 areas, very popular due the subsidies involved. As per the latest info not always compatible with the climate goals of the EU. Also so random that on side of a land border -Netherlands- everything is done to preserve an area even leading to farms having to close (buy out by government) due to high nitrogen emissions, while on the other side of that border the same land is dug up/ploughed to turn it into very good farm land, with associated farms…
@Lars: yeah man, it’s all a conspiracy.
@Aranthos Faroth: it’s not a conspiracy and conservering nature is very important. Unfortunately the EU once again managed to turn it into a bureaucratic subsidy driven program that doesn’t seem to get the best results for the money invested. The program itself is quite outdated (pre 2000) and should reviewed…
Absolutely not, I’ll be watching the guy that will be watching his washing machine going around, that’s a fantastic watch..
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