asked the Minister for Health whether he is aware of the practice whereby members of Galway County Council receive information regarding the amounts due by individual patients to Galway Central Hospital, and that this practice constitutes a breach of the private relationship that should exist between hospital and patient; whether he has considered the matter; and whether he proposes to take steps to have the practice terminated.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Galway Patients' Hospital Bills.
5.
While the position is not precisely as stated in the question, I understand that the county council, by resolution passed in 1954, requested that each member of the council should be supplied with a list of people who were about to be prosecuted by the council for failure to pay their hospital bills. By virtue of Section 27 of the County Management Act, 1940, this information, by reason of the resolution, must be supplied.
I deprecate the practice but I have no power to intervene.
Is the Minister aware that, in fact, such information has been in the possession of members of his own Party there? In fact, I have the information here for them, and it is signed.
It is a pity that the Deputy did not send me that in writing and I could have dealt with it.