THE IRISH Senior Citizens’ Parliament has urged the Government to reconsider its decision to withdraw the automatic entitlement of over-70s to medical cards in the context of the emergency budget.
The organisation’s chief executive, Mairéad Hayes, said yesterday that the Government should use the budget to restore the entitlement to older people as much of the savings it wanted to achieve by changing the scheme had already been achieved without the over-70s population handing back their medical cards.
“We understand that already the major portion of the intended savings has been achieved through the renegotiation of the capitation fees and better management of pharmacy costs,” she said.
She added that the implications of the withdrawal of the universal entitlement was now a matter of serious concern among over-70s, many of whom were “under a great degree of stress in relation to the prospect of having to hand back their medical card which they had come to rely on”.
Her comments came after a story in The Irish Times quoted a HSE spokeswoman saying that as of Friday last only about 1,500 people over 70 had handed back their medical cards.
However, the HSE said yesterday this figure was “not the correct figure”. It said it would not have figures for those who handed back medical cards until the end of this month but already it was aware that “several thousand” cards had been returned. Those over 70 whose income is above €700 a week in the case of a single person and €1,400 a week in the case of a couple were supposed to have handed back their cards by March 2nd. It was expected some 20,000 cards would be handed back.
Meanwhile, Age Action Ireland has also called on the Government to review its decision to remove the automatic entitlement to the over-70s medical card.
Its spokesman Eamon Timmins said there was still considerable confusion among the elderly about the changes to the over-70s medical card scheme and his organisation is coming across over-70s who insist they have yet to receive official correspondence from the HSE informing them they have to hand back their cards if they are in breach of the income thresholds.
“Age Action questions whether the administrative cost and difficulty of trying to take back cards from people who were previously entitled to them is justified,” he said.