Sláintecare reforms mean healthcare for private patients will become “slower and more expensive”, Ciara Kelly has said. 

In recent years, health insurance companies have announced one price hike after another, justifying them on the grounds of medical inflation. 

However, Newstalk Breakfast presenter and former GP Ciara Kelly said the Government’s healthcare reforms are also driving up prices. 

New consultant contracts have lured many doctors back to working with public patients full-time, meaning there are now fewer available to work in private practice. 

The result is even higher costs for private patients. 

“If we move to a one tier system but with some people still paying for health insurance, what it means for people paying health insurance is there will be now waiting times for health insured patients - which there wasn’t really previously,” she said. 

“But also that it will become more expensive. 

“So, for those paying for health insurance, it was going to become slower and more expensive - and that was how the one tier system was going to work. 

“The upshot of it that I wonder about - and I’m hearing anecdotally from many people - is that people are stopping paying their health insurance. 

“Why would you pay if it’s dearer and slower? But also, it’s becoming really, really expensive.” 

A doctor holding a stethoscope. Picture by: Alamy.com.

Ciara continued that the reforms are meant to create a health service akin to Britain’s National Health Service, a model she believes is becoming "obsolete". 

“I would put money on this, I would go to Paddy Power tomorrow and put a bet down saying the NHS won’t exist in 10 years,” she said. 

“The NHS, as a model, has one thing and one thing alone going for it - that is that it’s free at the point of access. 

“Which is great, yes, you don’t pay any money but in terms of how you actually measure health services and health systems, it is crap. 

“The outcomes are crap, its waiting times are slow, important procedures and drugs are rationed, people can’t get them. 

“Our health service, whether you hear it or not, is actually better in terms of being a patient within it than the NHS is. 

“To me, we are moving towards a model that is obsolete.” 

A doctor with a patient. Picture by: Alamy.com

Fellow presenter Shane Coleman noted there a “load of factors” causing health insurance costs to rise - such as the country’s ageing population and new treatments. 

“There was always something unpalatable about two things,” he said. 

“The idea of private consultants using public hospitals for their patients - I always thought that was pretty hard to justify. 

“And also, the idea of treating people based on their ability to pay rather than their medical need. 

“I don’t think anybody could be anything other than uncomfortable with that.”

Main image: Ciara Kelly in the Newstalk studio. Image: Newstalk