A PRIVATELY funded primary care campus, offering patients everything from MRI and CT scans to virtual colonoscopies, was officially opened yesterday in Naas, Co Kildare.
The €25 million facility backed by businessman Ulick McEvaddy was opened by Minister for Health Mary Harney who said she was pleased that negotiations between the HSE and the developers of the facility were continuing in relation to the procurement of space there for a primary care team.
Already the local out-of-hours GP co-op, K-Doc, has chosen to base itself at the new campus and Mr McEvaddy said a daytime GP service would also be available on site in due course. The cost of seeing a GP out of hours at the centre at present is €90.
Mr McEvaddy defended the cost, saying it was because of the range of “top end” diagnostics on site, which he said would not be available at any other primary healthcare centre. They would normally only be found in hospitals.
“This will not be an inexpensive facility . . . it’s not going to be cheap. I’m not pretending it is,” he said. He said Vista, the company behind the initiative, was in negotiations with private health insurance companies about covering patients attending the facility.
But already, he confirmed, public patients attending Naas General Hospital are being referred to the campus for CT scans. The National Treatment Purchase Fund is sending patients to the facility, he said.
For patients not covered by health insurance who want to be seen quickly he said they can have a colonoscopy, a crucial bowel cancer tests for which there can be long waiting times in several public hospitals, within 24 hours.
The cost of a non-invasive virtual colonoscopy, he said, would be €900. Meanwhile CT scans can cost about €400 and X-rays about €120.
Asked if he felt, in the current economic climate, people would pay this, he said it would only be a matter of time before the health insurers would cover patients for these expenses.
He also stressed that people’s health was their wealth.
Phase one of the campus opened yesterday and phase two, which is expected to open towards the end of the year, will include a 10-bed dialysis unit and two theatres for day procedures.
There will also be a minor injuries clinic opening in due course.
Mr McEvaddy confirmed Vista had plans for other primary care centres but he said in the present financial climate “we are not going to be rolling any others out until we consolidate this one”.
The Naas facility, which has Ireland’s first “wide-bore” MRI scanner, particularly suited to obese and claustrophobic patients, is expected to cater for 140,000 patients a year and provide 120 jobs across medical, surgical and administrative services.
The other backers of the project are Mr McEvaddy’s brother, Des McEvaddy, and their cousin Gerard Roche.
Labour’s health spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan said the very fact that Ms Harney was opening the private enterprise was a clear indication “that the profit motive has crept in to become a significant driver in the provision of our health services”.