German company offers to treat Irish patients on short-term basis

Treating patients on Irish waiting lists in German hospitals should be regarded as a "short-term solution only", according to a company proposing to offer the service.

"The Irish Government should concentrate on providing a health service for its citizens so that they do not need to go abroad for basic services," said Mr Axel Hollinger, chief executive of Germedic.

The company is proposing to offer Irish people such procedures as hip replacements and cancer treatment in Germany from the autumn. Treatment could be arranged within a fortnight, said Mr Hollinger, allowing the Department of Health to reduce waiting lists. For some procedures the waiting lists are up to several years.

Germedic is a private company which works with a non-profit government body, the Committee for Promoting German Medicine in Foreign Countries. It is already offering services to the Norwegian Ministry of Health, which is said to have sent over 300 patients to Germany. There are also advanced talks with the British Ministry of Health and it is in discussions with the Danish and Swedish governments.

A spokesman said the Department of Health had not yet received a proposal from Germedic and would examine it when it was put before the Department.

He pointed out that the principle of sending people abroad for medical treatment was "already there".

People can already apply to their local health board to get treatment abroad if it is not available in Ireland and if it has a reasonable chance of success. The three health boards of the Eastern region use a proportion of the funding they receive under the waiting lists initiative to treat patients in private hospitals both here and abroad.

Under this scheme some 40 children, patients at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin, were sent to the US for cardiac treatment last year.

In July the European Court ruled that patients who faced "undue delays" in their own country for medical care were entitled to treatment, at their own government's expense, in another EU country.

Mr Hollinger said Germedic would arrange hospital treatment for Irish people privately if they wished.

A spokeswoman for the VHI said the issue of whether it would cover the costs of treatment abroad did not arise, as there was "no real waiting list for our beds".

Mr Hollinger said the scheme being offered to the Irish Government should only be needed here for "five or seven years".

"It is not amusing for people to have to go abroad for treatment and this should not be seen as a long-term solution to long waiting lists," he said.