A new hospital has opened in Spain to treat patients on long public waiting lists in Ireland.
This hospital is part of a major new healthcare agreement, under which patients will be treated under the EU cross-border directive, meaning the Health Service Executive (HSE) will cover the price of the treatment up to the cost it would be in Ireland.
It is a new 64-bed hospital located on the Costa Blanca, Alicante, which is attended by approximately 1,500 Irish patients annually for routine scheduled surgeries.
Nearly every treatment currently available on the Irish public system will be delivered at the new hospital.
The hospital is expected to perform a variety of hip replacements, knee surgeries, spinal procedures, cataract procedures, weight loss surgeries and other treatments.
The agreement has been signed between the Hospital Clinical Benidorm Hospitales group (HBC) and Healthcare Abroad, an Irish logistics company that will assist patients traveling there for treatment.
The patients pay their own accommodation and travel costs.
Paul Byrne, Chief Operations Officer of Healthcare Abroad, told RTÉ that partnering with one of Spain’s leading hospital groups will change the lives of many Irish patients, enabling faster access to key healthcare treatments, which will have an immediate impact on their lives. quality of life.
The number of patients covered by the HSE under the cross-border guideline has increased in recent years.
In 2019, the HSE said 4,961 patients were reimbursed for care abroad at a cost of €13 million.
In 2020, the figures showed that 4,723 patients were insured for care abroad for an amount of €15 million despite the pandemic.
So far this year, 600 patients have received care abroad at a cost of €2 million.
The most common EU countries where Irish people want to be treated under the scheme are Spain, Poland, Lithuania and Germany.