The organisation representing hospital consultants has said that the PD's proposals to eliminate waiting lists are unworkable. The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association said that there was no spare capacity or specialist nurses to do extra work in the country's hospitals.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Health and Children, Mícheal Martin, has hinted the Progressive Democrats' plan would be given "careful consideration".
Dr Colm Costigan, the head of the consultants association, said that all the country's major hospitals are running at full capacity and there was little spare capacity in the small private sector.
He said that the existing waiting list initiative was already using any spare capacity in the private hospitals and private beds in public hospitals are fully used. He said that consultants resented the implication in the PD's plan that they were to blame for long waiting lists.
He said that capacity was the problem, along with the fact that in the major Dublin hospitals over 70% of admissions were emergencies, occupying beds originally designated for elective surgery.
Dr Costigan pointed out that operations like orthopaedics and urology, which take up a considerable proportion of the waiting list, are complicated procedures requiring specialist nurses, theatres and lengthy care. These facilities could not easily be found.
Minister Martin said that he envisaged a strong partnership role for private healthcare in solving the capacity issues in the hospital sector. Already, he pointed out the Government has given strong tax incentives to investors to build more private hospitals.
He said that the Department of Health was already sending children to the UK and US for treatment under the existing waiting lists initiative.
