Health disservice

John McManus in the IT puts it very neatly…

St Vincent’s encapsulates one of the main – if not the main – structural problems within the Irish health service: the interweaving of the private and public hospital systems and all the perverse incentives its creates. At its very simplest private hospitals cannot prosper unless the public hospital system fails. Organisations such as St Vincent’s and individuals such as consultants with a foot in both camps have a vested interest in maintaining this status quo – if not to exacerbate it.