91. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Health if children who are private patients have been prioritised over public patients for surgery in our public hospitals; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52178/26]

Sentiment score: 0.01

The Minister has said she believes in equality for every baby born in our public maternity hospitals and I absolutely agree. However, the EY report into CHI shows that children whose parents can afford to go private are being prioritised for essential surgery in our public hospitals. Surely the same equality should apply to children as well.

Sentiment score: 0.34

I thought there was some incredible spin, and some sections of the media absolutely fell for it, suggesting that this report proves there is no evidence of inequity in access. The Minister has echoed that. That is the first finding, but the full sentence states, "No evidence of inequity ... was identified; however, this conclusion is constrained by significant limitations in data availability, classification, and sample size." It is essentially exploiting perhaps deliberately poor record keeping, to claim that preferential access cannot be proved, but it does not change the fact that preferential access was found in the report. It is there in black and white on page 109 in the context of urology. Urology consultant 2 had 20 public patients with an average wait time of 12.4 months and ten private patients with an average wait time of 1.84 months. The other consultants are not as bad but there is a discrepancy between private and public. The same applies when you go into orthopaedics. Consultant 6 has 12 public patients with an average waiting time of 1.7 months and three private patients with average waiting times of zero. There are other examples.

Sentiment score: -0.07

There is often an attempt to suggest that discrimination between private and public patients does not have an impact on safety or patient care. That happened in the debate on the Rotunda. The Minister was involved and was on the correct side of that debate. I again quote the report, which states, "For Spinal patients, only 41% (9 out of 22) were treated within the Clinical Recommended Timeframes (CRTs), meaning 59% faced delays, sometimes for several months." In terms of urology, "Of the 73 patients reviewed, 30 (41%) were treated outside the Clinical Recommended Timeframes." The median delay was 152 days. There was one case where a child waited seven years for routine surgery. The report points out that "children may wait longer than clinically recommended for assessment, investigation or treatment, with potential consequences for clinical outcomes, disease progression, and quality of life." Does the Minister agree that just as private healthcare has no place in our public maternity hospitals, it similarly has no place in CHI? We should not be building private suites in the national children’s hospital. We should not be building inequality into our health system.

Sentiment score: 0.07