VHI plans to build hospital in the capital exclusively for its customers

IRELAND’S largest health insurer is planning to build its own hospital in Dublin.

Three possible locations for the VHI medical campus, which will be reserved solely for its customers, have already been identified.

If it goes ahead, it could mean the insurer will, in many cases, no longer have to pay premium rates for patients to be treated at public hospitals run by the HSE. This could cut the cost of VHI health insurance.

At present people with health insurance are a lucrative source of income for the HSE.

‘It could be a financial disaster for the HSE’

When they are admitted to public hospitals they are asked to sign a waiver giving up their entitlement to be treated as a public patient and as a result are charged €800 as opposed to €80 for an overnight stay.

These huge overnight fees are paid by health insurers. But this practice of charging patients with health insurance 10 times more than public patients has contributed to soaring premiums.

If the VHI’s plan to build its own hospital is given the go-ahead, it will mean that the State will not only be paying hundreds of millions to subsidise a public hospital system, but it will also be losing out on payments from people with health insurance.

A source revealed: ‘The VHI are looking at sites with the plan to build their own hospital. They have narrowed it down to three sites somewhere around Dublin – not all are in the city.

‘This could be a disaster for the HSE as they would lose so many VHI private patients.’

This weekend the VHI confirmed it was considering building its own hospital.

A spokesman referred to VHI initiatives such as the SwiftCare clinics, homecare and medical centres, saying: ‘We are at very early stages in exploring options to expand these services. We are looking at trying to bring all these services under the one roof.

‘We already have a lot of doctors and nurses working for us in the homecare service, which is really a hospital at home. This is a service for people who are discharged from hospital after an operation and are given IV treatment at home.

‘The demand has really grown and we think that it is going to increase. We also have the SwiftCare clinics and we provide health screening.

‘We are looking to see if we can develop the homecare service and at providing more services… It would be like a campus or a SwiftCare plus, where people with chronic diseases could be treated.

The VHI has an estimated one million customers and in recent years its relationship with the HSE has become fractious. Earlier this year, it refused to pay public hospitals specialist fees unless VHI customers had been treated by a specific consultant. The row developed after it emerged medics without expert training had been appointed to work on a temporary basis as consultants in public hospitals.

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association warned that appointing doctors not on the specialist register to temporary consultant posts could endanger patients. The IHCA claimed some of these medics had been working as temporary consultants for years.

According to the HSE these doctors were only appointed in emergency situations.

Asked to comment on the VHI hospital plan, the HSE said it was a matter for the insurer. Nobody in the press office of the Department of Health could be contacted to take a query.

‘Bring all our services under one roof’