Overview
- The Rotunda’s Board of Governors met on Monday and unanimously decided that consultants on the 2023 public-only contract must stop treating private patients inside the hospital and has given an audit/list of private work to the HSE.
- Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill set the audit deadline and warned the hospital funding could be withdrawn if the practice continued, a pressure the board cited as decisive in reversing its earlier position.
- A small number of pregnant women who had private arrangements with public-only consultants face short-term uncertainty about who will deliver their care and may be eligible for recompense.
- The dispute tests Sláintecare enforcement: the public-only contract introduced in March 2023 covers 14 of 32 Rotunda consultants and the change raises questions about indemnity because the Clinical Indemnity Scheme covers public activity but may not cover private work done inside public hospitals.
- Officials say the contents of the audit will determine whether the row is fully settled and could shape how private maternity access and contract compliance are managed across the public system going forward.