The board of Tallaght Hospital has agreed to the development of a controversial co-located private hospital on its grounds.
A spokeswoman said that at a special meeting on Saturday the board unanimously decided to proceed with the project to tender stage.
However, it is understood that the board set down a number of conditions for the development. These include a requirement that the public hospital will have representation on the board of the new facility, as will the trade unions. The private centre will also not be allowed to "cherry-pick" patients and, in general, will have to have the same case mix as the public hospital.
Tallaght Hospital had come under strong pressure from the Health Service Executive (HSE) to make a decision on approving the co-located facility.
The Irish Timesreported last week that the HSE had given the hospital a week to make up its mind or face being dropped from the national co-location plan and having to pay some of the costs incurred in the project.
Details of the HSE warning were set out in the minutes of a recent hospital management team meeting. These stated: "The HSE has advised the hospital that it has seven days to indicate its commitment to the project. Otherwise the HSE reserves the right to exclude AMNCH [Adelaide and Meath and National Children's Hospital] from the process forthwith and to recover associated bid costs incurred by the HSE to date for the site."
The co-location plan had been criticised publicly by Dr Fergus O'Ferrall, of the Adelaide Hospital Society and a board member of Tallaght Hospital, who claimed it would entrench the existing two-tier system of hospital care.
However, in a statement issued after the meeting, Dr O'Ferrall said the Adelaide Hospital Society acknowledged that the hospital board had no real choice in deciding to proceed to tender for a co-located private hospital based on agreed parameters with the HSE.
"The board of the hospital was left with no other option. It is imperative to provide up to 200 extra acute hospital beds to meet the pressing need of our patients and the board has focused on the best arrangements to provide for our patients and our medical and other staff, given the prevailing government policy," Dr O'Ferrall said.
He said that the crucial need for additional acute beds at Tallaght could only be met through the co-location initiative given that there was no alternative scheme for public investment to develop the essential bed capacity at the public hospital.
"The people decided this in re-electing the new Government with a mandate at the recent election," Dr O'Ferrall said.
A spokeswoman for the hospital acknowledged that the board had set down a number of conditions for the co-located hospital, including public hospital and trade union representation on the board.
The spokeswoman said the conditions were "not unusual" but declined to disclose them in full.
However, in its statement, the Adelaide Hospital Society said that the Tallaght board had sought to "mitigate some of the key concerns" which had arisen about such private hospitals.
"At Tallaght there will be an integrated clinical governance system governing care in both the public and the private hospital. The doctors who treat patients in the private hospital will be the same doctors who work in the public hospital. The public hospital will, therefore, be able to ensure the same standard of patient care in both public and private hospitals. In addition, the private hospital will not be able to 'cherry-pick' patients, as it will be required to have the same case-mix as the public hospital except where the public hospital has a designated national speciality. It is also proposed to integrate medical and nursing education and research across both hospitals," the society said.
The Labour Party said that the decision by the Tallaght board to agree to the development of a co-located private hospital had been made "under duress".
The decision was also criticised by the Tallaght Hospital Action Group.
Tallaght Hospital is one of eight public hospitals on which the HSE wants private co-located hospitals built in order to implement a Government plan to free up 1,000 public hospital beds. The private patients who normally occupy these beds would, under the plan, transfer to the new private hospitals on site.
