Minister hits out at Vhi as 75 jobs lost
VHI’s decision not to provide cover for the Cork Medical Centre, which has led to its closure and the loss of 75 jobs, has been described as “extraordinary” by Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney.
The hospital opened in October and was to provide cutting-edge treatment in a number of areas and employ up to 525 people when at full capacity. While Aviva and Quinn both agreed to provide cover, Vhi refused to come on board making the facility unviable.
The region’s senior member of Cabinet, Simon Coveney, said the Government wants to see the facility at Mahon re-opened and the jobs safeguarded. However, he said the final decision was up to the insurance provider and the Government could not instruct a semi-state company in how they should run their affairs.
Vhi has said it cannot afford to provide cover to the hospital due to cost-implications, that the hospital would not provide any meaningful savings and that the country was oversupplied with private hospitals. All these claims have been strongly refuted by management at the Cork hospital.
Minister Coveney said: “Vhi should not be able to provide a veto on what hospitals it provides cover to. I also do not accept that there is no need for the facility in Cork. The Government wants to see the hospital opened and to save these jobs but we cannot instruct the Vhi as to how they run the business.”
A spokesperson for the Minister for Health, Dr James Reilly, said the Minister believes it would be “regrettable to lose the capacity, facilities and jobs within the Centre”.
He is meeting with representative from Vhi today in a bid to break the impasse.
Minister Reilly is also to bring up the possibility of using the centre to tackle the waiting lists in both public and private hospitals through the Nation Treatment Purchase Fund.
Ministers Reilly and Coveney, along with TDs Jerry Buttimer and Dara Murphy, met management of the Cork Medical Centre yesterday. It was Minister Reilly’s first meeting since taking on the health portfolio.
