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Hospital in Mahon could Close soon.
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it barely seemed to register on the public radar, was poorly sign-posted, and there was barely a muttering of jobs, even with things as they are jobs-wise...
@dudess if you call the RTE Six One News (twice), TV3 News (twice), Morning Ireland, Newstalk lots of other radio news and feature coverage, plus being consistently in the main news pages of all the national pages 'barely a muttering' then I'd like to know what you see as high profile.0 -
RoverJames wrote: »So that means it isn't top class ?, having seen family members being treated for cancer and heart disease there I maintain in my experience it is a top class hospital.
Yes, yes it does.0 -
Republicpr.ie wrote: »I've never hidden the fact they are one of my clients that's why I use my company name as my username and have full details in Boards.ie profile. If I want to check out another poster I look at their profile. I don't believe in posting anonymously in discussions like this because you can't have an honest debate.
You must get authorisation from boards to post. See the mod warning you were given.
MC0 -
Outkast_IRE wrote: »what a bad argument republiccpr made anyway, the bons is always refurbising wards to keep them all up to date, iv worked on 3 of the different ward refurbs in the space of 18 months , who cares how old the building is , its the quality of care , cleanliness and quality of facilites that matter.
I havent been in shanakiel but im sure they keep it in excellent condition too.
As Dr Gareth Higgins said recently in The Cork News he's worked in Australia, the UK and elsewhere Ireland and he's never seen operating theatres of the standard in CMC. Stainless steel, any bacterial sealant on walls, kicks strips on the doors and their own air flow systems. They were pretty incredible.
The key is not the building itself but the layout. All hospitals should have single rooms now, that is best practice in order to reduce the spread of infections such as MRSA. In the US now all hospitals have to be built with single rooms. CMC was the first in Ireland to do so.
On entry each patient was to go up to their room and be swabbed for superbugs, if they were found to have them then they were moved to one of the isolation rooms on each ward, which had their own air system and also was had negative air pressure where the patients were kept until superbug free. The layout of the building also meant there was little chance of contact with either other patients or visitors and, therefore, less chance of infection when they were being moved around. The layout of the building on ascending floors meant patients were out of the ward straight in one of the patient only lifts and straight down to the operating theatres, with little movement in between, thus reducing the chances of infection further. If you compare this to the Bons you can be rolled around all over the place.
Infection control is the main priority when designing any new hospital.0 -
MunsterCycling wrote: »You must get authorisation from boards to post. See the mod warning you were given.
MC
I am posting as an individual and have posted on here for years always being open about who I am, that's why I use my company name, I feel it's more honest that way.
Simon.0 -
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Republicpr.ie wrote: »I've never hidden the fact they are one of my clients that's why I use my company name as my username and have full details in Boards.ie profile. If I want to check out another poster I look at their profile. I don't believe in posting anonymously in discussions like this because you can't have an honest debate.
Simon,
the sheehans were told all along that VHI were not going to cover them, the sheehans knew this and said that it did not bother them, as the had seen how the galway clinic had cash paying patients and treatment fund patients, and they were going to go this route also...they gambled and it back fired. they also gambled the jobs of the employees that left their previous jobs to go to mahon, the sheehans are not even paying them their final salary per papers reports.... i feel for the employees, but NOT the sheehans0 -
Republicpr.ie wrote: »I am posting as an individual and have posted on here for years always being open about who I am, that's why I use my company name, I feel it's more honest that way.
Simon.
You are posting about a company you get paid to say nice things about. You do not have an individual position in this case.
I'd gladly read your posts about the weather but, when talking about hospitals, you have no credibility.0 -
Republicpr.ie
Please contact hello@boards.ie
We do not allow companies to post on this site without direct authorisation from the Boards.ie office.
Republicpr.ie permanent ban for not following instructions.0 -
I am an orthopedic surgeon from Cork now working in the UK. I previously had a position at a rival hospital to CMC in Cork (one of the ones mentioned above). Since them I have worked in the US, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and parts of East Asia, in both the public and private sectors, so I feel I am qualified to comment on the standards of hospitals. What I can add to this conversation is that I have never ever worked in a hospital of this standard anywhere in the world. There is nothing like it in Ireland, and certainly not in Cork.
I was intending to move back and take a slot in CMC and thought it was incredible that Cork was getting a hospital worthy of the city's stature.
I was discussing the situation with some colleagues here in London recently and they were astounded that Cork, Ireland's so-called second city, did not have a modern hospital. They literally were very shocked indeed. The lack of such as facility and the debacle surrounding CMC reflects very badly on Cork and Ireland as whole. The Cork residents paying private health fees to Vhi should be outraged at this decision because it will have a direct consequence on the quality of health services they will receive.
A situation like this would not be allowed to happen in any other country that I have worked in. An asset like this to health system would simply not be allowed to fail. Aside from that, no other country would leave it's second city with such outdated facilities or without a new hospital for so long. How long now before Cork get's another hospital of this standard with fully single rooms?
As sad sad day for Cork.0 -
Wow.
One whole post.
This was a business. It's business foundation didn't work out because it relied on State-owned companies to support it.
That's it.0 -
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A situation like this would not be allowed to happen in any other country that I have worked in. An asset like this to health system would simply not be allowed to fail. Aside from that, no other country would leave it's second city with such outdated facilities or without a new hospital for so long. How long now before Cork get's another hospital of this standard with fully single rooms?
As sad sad day for Cork.
Serious ? The staff in the Charite in Berlin are pissed off at the moment. Facilities in Cork aren't outdated unless you're a Sheehan or one of their PR shills.0 -
Parsi - yes this is my first time on here and I don't intend to be on here again, but as I said I live in the UK now. I just wanted to offer my insight, which I happen to think is valuable to the conversation and don't expect to get snide comments because I choose to do so. If you had seen this, and other modern facilities, you simply would not be saying Cork has them, because it does not. The current facility I work in doesn't even have the standards that were being put in play at Mahon. The hospital I used to work at in Cork has been extended over the years and had bits added on or converted, which means patients are being wheeled over a great distance, coming into contact with other people, and have a great many instances where they, or the staff, can pick up infections. That is the most important factor here. Then when they return to their rooms they are sharing with other patients. This is only one aspect of an outdated mode of health treatment, but one that seems to fit with your outdated Irish view of medicine and I say that as an Irishman myself.0
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Hello,
Here are my obs as a former employee of CMC and to shed some light on the misinformation:
1) The Cork Medical Centre isn't simply a 'Sheehan' hospital. There are a lot of people who invested and believed in the idea of bringing a modern hospital to the second biggest city in Ireland. There are a lot of local companies that would have benefited from having this hospital open, and many companies who ended up losing money because it was closed. To simply state this as just 'The Sheehans gambled and lost. Too bad for them!' is ignorant.
2) VHI verbally agreed to provide coverage to CMC and then backed away from it on the basis that there are 'enough private beds in Ireland'. Who is VHI to decide this? Are they an insurance company or a regulator?
3) At the same time VHI denied covering CMC - they provided coverage to a private hospital in Dublin. When CMC said they would take the same deal - VHI said 'no'.
4) Minister for Health said the following about VHI:
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.”
Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/minister-hits-out-at-vhi-as-75-jobs-lost-496880.html#ixzz1IS1aSm3J
My conclusion:
This isn't about poor hospital/business management (although there was some of that involved) this is about an insurance company holding a monopoly and deciding what private company will open and which one won't. This is about a semi-state organization working directly against the increase in competition in Cork which would make all private hospitals better! The Cork Medical Centre would raise the bar on the level of care and service it would provide to patients in Cork that the Bons and Shanakiel would have to respond to.
Instead, the decision was made that what Cork has now is 'good enough' for its people. Whether that is true or not, it isn't VHI's place to make that decision! If CMC isn't needed patients would not have come to it and it would have gone out of business. But, to completely take away its opportunity to compete is BAD BAD BAD for Cork and Ireland.
Ireland open for business? Yah, right...
I don't know why VHI covers some hospitals and not others, but I can tell you that it has no problem providing cover to Dublin Hospitals. It also has no problem providing cover to private hospitals that are more 'Irish' - just look at the problem the Beacon hospital had...
G0 -
^
Gosh, a lot of new activity on this thread all of a sudden - did Simon get all his friends to post in his absence?0 -
Very cynical evilivor. Excuse me for still caring about a hospital that I spent a lot of time working at only to have it closed down by politics and stupidity.
G0 -
Perhaps one should contemplate why a private hospital can't stand on its own but requires significant public subsidy ?0
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What significant public subsidy do you speak of? You certainly can't be saying a semi-state insurance company that holds 60+% of the coverage and 80+% of private procedures as public subsidy. No, that's a monopoly.0
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They had a "verbal " agreement with VHI , in fairness only a fool would open a entire hospital based on a verbal agreement . That makes no business sense/as an investor it would make no sense .
And the Vhi has every right to decide if they want to cover a hospital or not , the alternative would mean any hospital that opened would be obliged to be covered , thats not the way any business would operate.0 -
Hello,
Here are my obs as a former employee of CMC and to shed some light on the misinformation:
1) The Cork Medical Centre isn't simply a 'Sheehan' hospital. There are a lot of people who invested and believed in the idea of bringing a modern hospital to the second biggest city in Ireland. There are a lot of local companies that would have benefited from having this hospital open, and many companies who ended up losing money because it was closed. To simply state this as just 'The Sheehans gambled and lost. Too bad for them!' is ignorant.
2) VHI verbally agreed to provide coverage to CMC and then backed away from it on the basis that there are 'enough private beds in Ireland'. Who is VHI to decide this? Are they an insurance company or a regulator?
3) At the same time VHI denied covering CMC - they provided coverage to a private hospital in Dublin. When CMC said they would take the same deal - VHI said 'no'.
4) Minister for Health said the following about VHI:
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.”
Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/minister-hits-out-at-vhi-as-75-jobs-lost-496880.html#ixzz1IS1aSm3J
My conclusion:
This isn't about poor hospital/business management (although there was some of that involved) this is about an insurance company holding a monopoly and deciding what private company will open and which one won't. This is about a semi-state organization working directly against the increase in competition in Cork which would make all private hospitals better! The Cork Medical Centre would raise the bar on the level of care and service it would provide to patients in Cork that the Bons and Shanakiel would have to respond to.
Instead, the decision was made that what Cork has now is 'good enough' for its people. Whether that is true or not, it isn't VHI's place to make that decision! If CMC isn't needed patients would not have come to it and it would have gone out of business. But, to completely take away its opportunity to compete is BAD BAD BAD for Cork and Ireland.
Ireland open for business? Yah, right...
I don't know why VHI covers some hospitals and not others, but I can tell you that it has no problem providing cover to Dublin Hospitals. It also has no problem providing cover to private hospitals that are more 'Irish' - just look at the problem the Beacon hospital had...
GOutkast_IRE wrote: »They had a "verbal " agreement with VHI , in fairness only a fool would open a entire hospital based on a verbal agreement . That makes no business sense/as an investor it would make no sense .
And the Vhi has every right to decide if they want to cover a hospital or not , the alternative would mean any hospital that opened would be obliged to be covered , thats not the way any business would operate.
Agree with you Outkast
the "sheehans" KNEW they would not be covered going back to last year, going on an interview they gave, and at the time said it was no big deal to them. then they run and blame an insurance company for their own miserable down fall !! not very business savy. And what business now a days operates on verbal agreements ? they do not stand up in court, and to base their business plan on an insurance company that may or may not be there in a few years in stupid
gciddy,when the job was offered to you in CMC, did you get it verbally or in writing ??
Coveney is not minister for health either0 -
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You are posting about a company you get paid to say nice things about. You do not have an individual position in this case.
I'd gladly read your posts about the weather but, when talking about hospitals, you have no credibility.
Of course I have an individual position in this project. Irrelevant of the fact I did the publicity on the project I still have right to come on here and correct errors and untruths about the project.0 -
Agree with you Outkast
the "sheehans" KNEW they would not be covered going back to last year, going on an interview they gave, and at the time said it was no big deal to them. then they run and blame an insurance company for their own miserable down fall !! not very business savy. And what business now a days operates on verbal agreements ? they do not stand up in court, and to base their business plan on an insurance company that may or may not be there in a few years in stupid
gciddy,when the job was offered to you in CMC, did you get it verbally or in writing ??
Coveney is not minister for health either
@Outkast @oldfecker We're going over old ground here, you're both forgetting that Vhi does not and never has covered at hospital until it opens. They don't cover them off-plan. They need to see the quality of the hospital and th staff before approving it for their clients. Minister Reilly also indicated that Sheehan Medical has done nothing wrong in their approach. It's people like the Sheehan's who are willing to risk their reputation and a lot of money up front, in order to get anything done in this country.0 -
SimonPalmer wrote: »@Outkast @oldfecker We're going over old ground here, you're both forgetting that Vhi does not and never has covered at hospital until it opens. They don't cover them off-plan. They need to see the quality of the hospital and th staff before approving it for their clients. Minister Reilly also indicated that Sheehan Medical has done nothing wrong in their approach. It's people like the Sheehan's who are willing to risk their reputation and a lot of money up front, in order to get anything done in this country.
there is the problem...... they "presumed" they would be covered going on past hospitals, and bump they were caught out... that why getting cover in writing would have been the smart option !! :eek:
and no insurance company vets the staff !!
You stil have not clarified WHY last year they knew, and did not care vhi would not cover them...sorry for going over "old ground" but like a politician you still not have answered this0 -
They didn't open the entire hospital because of a verbal agreement. The hospital had to be in a certain state of 'open-ness' in order for VHI to make a decision as to whether to provide coverage to it or not. VHI doesn't make coverage decisions based upon a hospital's business plan. The money had to be spent, people had to be hired, and equipment had to be purchased.
Also, the hospital wasn't open in its entirety - there was no inpatient rooms open only Day Surgery and Radiology.
Outkast IRE - VHI often denies coverage at first only to eventually provide coverage. This is what they did at The Beacon (from my understanding) and also the Galway Clinic. But this process is usually only 2 mos in length - and obviously the country was in a different economic place then. Anyway.. it seems Sheehan Medical is going to file a lawsuit against VHI:
http://www.sbpost.ie/news/ireland/cork-medical-centre-to-sue-vhi-55077.html
"James Sheehan, chief executive of Sheehan Medical, said he believed the insurer’s refusal to cover its members for care at Cork Medical Centre was anti-competitive.
He said he would make a complaint to the Competition Authority within days and that he would have ‘‘no option’’ but to make a legal challenge on behalf of investors.
Sheehan said his family had made a personal investment of €20 million in the hospital which opened in October.
It closed last week after failing to secure VHI cover.
A leading competition lawyer told this newspaper that while VHI was entitled to refuse to cover the hospital, it must have objective reasons.
‘VHI is in a dominant position and if you wanted to be on either side of this case alleging abuse of a dominant position then you would want to be the people taking on VHI," he said.
He also pointed to a case with a hospital in Mullingar going to the Supreme Court in the mid 1990s after VHI withdrew cover.
VHI was forced to restore cover at the hospital."
Just can't believe people's response to this tragic closure of the hospital and our layoff. It is this type of response of shrugging off the nature of VHI that Ireland has had so much corruption throughout the years and now has to pay the 70 billion euro bailout cost.
G0 -
I'd like to see this interview where Sheehan Medical didn't care if they got VHI coverage or not.
I am no way saying in any of this that there wasn't business mistakes made by Sheehan Medical - I am saying that if VHI did provide coverage (and they had ZERO REASON NOT TO!) it would have made all those mistakes mute.
As such, it was the decision by VHI to not cover the hospital that ultimately made me unemployed. Also, it seems to me to be an antitrust violation as both VHI and the Bons have a monopoly in the Cork healthcare marketplace - and by denying CMC and running them out of business they have been able to maintain that monopoly and this goes in the face of 'fair competition'.
And you wonder why Ireland's economy could be considered one of the worst in the EU.
G0 -
They didn't open the entire hospital because of a verbal agreement. The hospital had to be in a certain state of 'open-ness' in order for VHI to make a decision as to whether to provide coverage to it or not. VHI doesn't make coverage decisions based upon a hospital's business plan. The money had to be spent, people had to be hired, and equipment had to be purchased.
Also, the hospital wasn't open in its entirety - there was no inpatient rooms open only Day Surgery and Radiology.
Outkast IRE - VHI often denies coverage at first only to eventually provide coverage. This is what they did at The Beacon (from my understanding) and also the Galway Clinic. But this process is usually only 2 mos in length - and obviously the country was in a different economic place then. Anyway.. it seems Sheehan Medical is going to file a lawsuit against VHI:
http://www.sbpost.ie/news/ireland/cork-medical-centre-to-sue-vhi-55077.html
"James Sheehan, chief executive of Sheehan Medical, said he believed the insurer’s refusal to cover its members for care at Cork Medical Centre was anti-competitive.
He said he would make a complaint to the Competition Authority within days and that he would have ‘‘no option’’ but to make a legal challenge on behalf of investors.
Sheehan said his family had made a personal investment of €20 million in the hospital which opened in October.
It closed last week after failing to secure VHI cover.
A leading competition lawyer told this newspaper that while VHI was entitled to refuse to cover the hospital, it must have objective reasons.
‘VHI is in a dominant position and if you wanted to be on either side of this case alleging abuse of a dominant position then you would want to be the people taking on VHI," he said.
He also pointed to a case with a hospital in Mullingar going to the Supreme Court in the mid 1990s after VHI withdrew cover.
VHI was forced to restore cover at the hospital."
Just can't believe people's response to this tragic closure of the hospital and our layoff. It is this type of response of shrugging off the nature of VHI that Ireland has had so much corruption throughout the years and now has to pay the 70 billion euro bailout cost.
G
the law suit is laughable.... no insurance company has to cover any private hospital or public hospital for that matter.
And it did not need to be at a certain state of openess for an insurance company before they would decide on it being covered. that is decided by looking at the hospitals in the area already, and the number of beds already in place in those hospitals versus demand...0 -
My bad on the minister for health statement.
G0 -
I'd like to see this interview where Sheehan Medical didn't care if they got VHI coverage or not.
G
here ya go Dated 17/10/2010 http://www.sbpost.ie/newsfeatures/healthy-outlook-52298.html
" Sheehan sits on the boards of the Blackrock and Galway Clinics and is a shareholder in both.
He is well aware of the precarious state of Ireland’s health insurance market.
The main health insurer, VHI Healthcare, has insufficient financial reserves and is losing customers.
While many VHI customers are switching to rival insurers, there has also been a notable decline in the number of people with private health insurance in Ireland.
Sheehan Medical maintains it is between 10 and 15 per cent cheaper than its rivals. Aviva and Quinn have agreed to cover their members for treatment at the CMC, but VHI has not. ‘‘It is a concern, but not a big one," Sheehan said.
‘‘We have seen consistent growth in the number of self-payers in Galway.
As the economic crisis continues we will see more people drop out of the health insurance market and take a risk. I think more and more people will adopt the attitude that private healthcare is something they will pay for if they need it,’’Sheehan said.
‘‘That," he quickly added, ‘‘is no bad thing."
they knew then no coverage !! and were going on the galway clinic model of self paying patients....0 -
VHI often states that it won't provide coverage and then does once forced to. Tell me this, how can it say that there is enough private beds in Ireland and then at the same time offer Vincent's Private Hospital in Dublin coverage? VHI is in no position to determine whether there is enough private beds in Ireland. It is not a government regulator. VHI is an insurance company and it had no reason to deny providing coverage to CMC.
Lets switch this around! Can anyone give me a good reason why it was acceptable for VHI to not come to terms with CMC? Why it makes sense for its customers or for the populace of Cork? Or, how there is any POSITIVE outcome to the series of events that happened?
Is CMC closing its doors a good thing for Cork or for Ireland?
G0 -
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Scoby - that doesn't prove much. They said it was a concern, and of course they down played it. They didn't want to scare away businesses or staff. And, there has been a general increase in the number of 'self pay' patients as people think its important enough to spend extra money for high quality and efficient care that they generally do not get in public hospitals or older private hospitals - how is that a bad thing? People of Ireland should demand better and safer care in its hospitals! I really don't see anything bad in that quote that shows the Sheehan's deserved to go out of business.
Perhaps it IS a bit of the old 'If you build it they will come' mentality.. and that is a RISK but nothing would be built in this country if people didn't take risks. They had no reason to think VHI wouldn't provide coverage when it continued to grant coverage for other private hospitals in Dublin.
Oh, and Galway Clinic has VHI coverage - if they were going on that model then VHI is an important part of their business plan.
What am I missing here?0
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