Vhi Healthcare to Study Implications of Health Strategy

26th November 2001 - Vhi Healthcare today (26 November 2001) welcomed the publication of the Government Health Strategy 2001 and said it will study the document to assess the impact of proposals on Vhi Healthcare's 1.5 million members.

"This is an important document that provides an excellent analysis of the weaknesses within the Public health sector and puts in place a framework to address these weaknesses," said Vhi Healthcare chief executive, Vincent Sheridan.

"The proposals relating to acute hospital care form a relatively small part of the overall document. However, these are of great interest to Vhi Healthcare as we assess the impact the Strategy will have on our ability to deliver the comprehensive benefits that we provide.

"On our initial reading we are greatly concerned by the proposal that action may be taken to suspend admissions of private patients for elective treatment in public hospitals if the maximum target waiting time for public patients is exceeded. This is not workable. Private insurers must be in a position to deliver the benefits they contract for and need certainty with regard to the resources available to them and not have these resources subject to events completely outside their control," said Mr Sheridan.

"In addition, the plan to establish a fund to purchase private treatment for patients on public waiting lists appears to be based on the premise that there is surplus capacity within the private hospital sector. Our research indicates that whatever spare capacity exists is widely dispersed geographically and may not be suitable for the most common procedures on the waiting list."

Vhi Healthcare welcomed the recognition in the strategy of the role of private health insurance as ‘an integral part of the funding and delivery of hospital services to the population'.

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