The Cork Northside branch of the Workers’ Party have said that calls from a number of public representatives to relocate the proposed Beacon private hospital to the grounds of the Orthopaedic Hospital are an insult to the people of the city's Northside who have been without a proper hospital service for the last two decades.

Local Workers’ Party spokesman Mick Crowley said that in excess of 50,000 people on the Northside of Cork don’t even have an Accident & Emergency or minor injuries clinic available to them and the last thing they need is a private hospital which would be off-limits to the overwhelming majority of Northsiders.

“The proposal to co-locate private hospital facilities on the grounds of public hospitals, partly funded by the Irish taxpayers, is a reinforcement of the two-tier health service which causes huge hardship and suffering for ordinary people”, said Mr. Crowley.

“The government want to create a deluxe hospital for those able to afford it while the less off will continue to have to put up with a third world health service.  Understandably the proposed hospital on the grounds of the CUH in Bishopstown on the Southside has run into opposition locally, so the supporters of the apartheid health service want to move the hospital to the Northside where they could avail of its services without having the inconvenience of extra traffic. The rights of the people of Northside are not considered”.

“The Northside of Cork needs a hospital but not the proposed Beacon Hospital which would give us all the disadvantages of extra traffic coming into the area but would leave the area still without an A&E or other essential hospital services.  The Workers’ Party calls for proper hospital services to be developed on the grounds of the Orthopaedic, not a clinic for the ultra rich”, said Mick Crowley.