Posted by In his book, Mr Coulter-Smith argues that voluntary hospitals can avoid HSE bureaucracy, more easily innovate and respond to emergencies quicker.
Former master of Rotunda praises hospitals founded by religious – The Irish Catholic
The former master of the Rotunda hospital has described his relationship with the HSE as “quite toxic at times” and praised voluntary hospitals, the vast majority of which were founded and run by religious orders in Ireland.
In his new book, Delivering the Future: Reflections of a Rotunda Master, Sam Coulter-Smith spoke of the need and benefits of voluntary hospitals which he believes are under existential threat.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, he said: “The cyber attack and Covid-19 have helped the HSE realise that there is a lot of good in voluntary hospitals. Paul Reid, who I interviewed for the book, said as much: they didn’t know what they had.”
In his book, Mr Coulter-Smith argues that voluntary hospitals can avoid HSE bureaucracy, more easily innovate and respond to emergencies quicker.
“Pretty much everything good that has come out of the health service in Ireland over the last 300 years has come out of the voluntary health service,” he states in the book.
While praising the work of voluntary hospitals, whose network was founded and run by religious orders, he doesn’t believe religion should be involved in hospitals, saying “absolutely no way that there should be religious interference in medicine”.
“But just because you want to end religious interference doesn’t mean you should want to end voluntary hospitals,” he said, adding the new National Maternity Hospital should be an independent voluntary hospital.
Mr Coulter-Smith also said that better oversight and governance in voluntary hospitals can serve to avoid problems seen in HSE-run hospitals. Their boards can step in and find funding from private healthcare sources which he says are extremely important for maternity services which have been “starved of funding”.
He also states in his book that women are “putting off having babies until they are in their thirties, and then they are surprised when they have miscarriages”.
Asked about this, he told the Irish Independent: “There is no doubt as you get older, your fertility does drop off and the rate of miscarriage goes up because the anomaly rate goes up a little bit. It’s a gradual process. There is a consequence to that choice, which maybe people don’t fully, fully understand. And that’s not being in any way critical, it’s just a fact of life.”