Sir, \u2013 In the past few weeks I have come across ads for private healthcare on local radio, on national radio, in the cinema, on billboards in Cork and Dublin, and on social media.<\/p>\n
It is not totally clear what is driving this onslaught of advertising. Whether it is business as usual, fear \u2013 due to the slight decrease in the number of people with private health insurance because of its skyrocketing prices \u2013 or, possibly, the opportunity for profit that arises when over a million people are waiting on public lists for medical care.<\/p>\n
There are also more subtle forms of advertising that the private healthcare companies engage in. In the advertising that they do to the public sector, for example, these include sponsoring screening, information and wellbeing events, as well as sponsoring various fitness activities.<\/p>\n
Private healthcare advertisements can normalise the current two-tier health system. They can suppress awareness that there is another alternative entirely to the two-tier system, namely universal healthcare.<\/p>\n
Achieving universal healthcare is Irish state policy; the HSE is quite clear that in Ireland \u201cwe\u2019re building towards equal access to health services for every citizen. This will be based on individual patient need and not individual\u2019s ability to pay\u201d.<\/p>\n
Private healthcare advertisements tend not to directly address what is really at stake with private healthcare: that you might get to live because you have money. Now, this is Ireland, and we all know this, but at the same time, private healthcare advertisements generally \u2013 with some exceptions \u2013 do not mention money or price.<\/p>\n