Opposition grows to private management plan for UHG

Date Published: 19-Oct-2011

Trade union IMPACT and the opposition have reacted frostily to Government plans to recruit a private management company to take over the day-to-day running of University Hospital Galway (UHG), as part of an overhaul of hospital management throughout the HSE West region.

The Health Service Executive has begun a tender process in which five private companies are competing to secure a contract for taking over the management of a number of acute hospitals in the west region, including UHG. The successful business that will be responsible for the city hospital is expected to be announced within the next fortnight.

Sinn Féin has called for the decision to be immediately reversed; and union representatives said the move would “effectively privatise hospital services in the Western region by stealth”.

The reforms will see successful private managers of the tender process report directly to the HSE West Regional Director, John Hennessy, but they will also be answerable to Health Minister Dr James Reilly, where the ‘buck stops’ with all health matters.

A spokesperson for Minister Reilly said the new private management team would not directly oversee operations at Merlin Park Hospital and Portiuncula Hospital Ballinasloe but that the new management’s expertise and knowledge would be ‘shared’ with management at the other two public hospitals in Galway.

The private managers would be funded through existing HSE resources, he said, and the measure would be a temporary one with the contract lasting 15 months.

The finer details of how the new structure would operate have not yet been unveiled by Government. It is understood Dr David O’Keeffe, Clinical Director of UHG, will remain in his position but he will have diminished responsibility as this new company takes over. It is also understood the new managers will have responsibility for UHG’s multi-million Euro budget.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.