Dervla

That's their responsibility to provide the choice.

Yes, but I mean, everybody should be entitled to it if they want to have it, you know, if you're talking about choice.

It's not a choice if you can't afford it and only some people can afford it.

Well, yeah, it is, but that isn't a choice.

It's another choice if you don't, you know... It's a choice for them, though.

It's also, it is there.

You can, you know, and it is wrong, but you can get private maternity care and, indeed, many other private medical services in publicly funded hospitals.

And that is wrong, and that is the direction that slaunter care, which all the government parties have apparently signed up to but are wishy-washy about...

But that is the direction that sludge care is bringing us.

But really, I would say that the consultants in the Rotunda who signed a public-only contract, what were they thinking of?

They didn't have to sign that.

They could have stuck with their contract that allows them to do private practice within the public system, which is wrong in itself, but they could have done that as they did in Hollow Street.

There are publicly paid consultants who didn't sign the public-only contract who are providing private care.

And eventually, that will wash out of the system.

And maybe by then, there will actually be proper choice for everybody.

That's what the public system has to move towards and has to do.

And they have a responsibility to do that.

And they're extremely well funded to do that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

But it's not, but it still doesn't mean that they should be subsidising private care.