Eight women who were under the private care of a public-only consultant at the Rotunda Hospital will now transfer to new doctors for the rest of their pregnancy and the delivery of their babies. The busiest maternity hospital in the country, which this week backed down in a dispute with the HSE and Minister for Health over private care, said whether or not refunds might be owed to women was “an issue for the consultant” and their private patients. Between January and May this year, one consultant who had signed a contract agreeing to only provide public care at the maternity hospital delivered five babies to private patients. The consultant had been given the permission of the Rotunda to continue providing private care on the site of the mostly publicly funded hospital, which the HSE and the Department of Health said was a breach of the Rotunda’s service-level agreement with the State. After a dramatic and public row, the Rotunda this week backed down and agreed to stop giving public-only consultants permission to provide private care after the HSE threatened to start a process that could see the maternity hospital’s funding withheld or withdrawn. But both the Rotunda and the National Maternity Hospital have said they are still seeking a carveout from public health policy that would allow private care to continue in maternity hospitals. The Coombe declined to comment. Private maternity care will eventually end as obstetricians retire and new consultants are automatically offered public-only consultant contracts (POCC). In the middle of the dispute, it emerged that private health insurers were not expecting to process claims for the private care of patients who were under a public-only consultant at the Rotunda. In at least two incidents this year, VHI refused to process claims for babies born under the care of the public-only consultant. There are currently eight pregnant women who are still under the care of the same consultant. In a statement to The Irish Times, the Rotunda said: “All eight patients have been communicated with and made aware of the POCC issue and have all opted to remain as private patients and are happy that their remaining care will now transfer to a non-POCC consultant, including delivery.”Speaking on Tuesday, master of the Rotunda Prof Sean Daly said that “this particular consultant has a very small private practice, maybe delivers one woman a month. So, there’s not a lot of women to accommodate, and we will accommodate them, depending on what they want to do.”Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill had previously suggested that women who had paid private or semi-private fees to see the same consultant might be owed a refund from the hospital.[ Rotunda stands by decision to allow public-only consultants offer private maternity careOpens in new window ]The Rotunda said that the “matter of refunds is an issue for the consultant and their private patients who retained their service. The hospital only raises statutory accommodation charges for patients who have opted for private care once admitted to hospital so there will be no refunds due from the hospital.”The maternity hospital had been given until Monday to provide the HSE with an audit of its public-only consultants who were still providing private care. It had been warned that failure to do so could result in the HSE triggering a clause under its contract with the Rotunda that could have affected its State funding. Carroll MacNeill had also raised questions about the status of the hospital’s State-funded clinical indemnity insurance if the issue persisted. After a short meeting on Monday evening, the board of governors of the Rotunda said that it had “unanimously decided to bring the hospital’s arrangements into line with the Government’s policy on the terms of the public-only consultant contract”.