Public hospitals will not cope this winter, without the help of private hospitals.
That's the view of INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha, who's calling for early agreements to be made now.
Her comments come as Ireland braces itself for a winter of Covid and flu and deals with significant staff shortages in hospital settings.
Phil Ní Sheaghdha says if changes aren't made now, procedures will continue to be cancelled.
"We're anticipating that our hospitals, that are already over crowded, will not cope this winter.
"That's why we've asked for an early agreement with private hospitals, so we can make sure that acute services are not overwhelmed to the point where if you're a patient waiting for a procedure today that you don't get a phone call to say 'sorry, we don't have a bed so we're cancelling your procedure'".
