Subsidies on medical products needed by paralysed people have been withdrawn, the Department of Health and Children admitted yesterday.
As a result, many wheelchair users are paying £50 to £100 extra per month for items which they have to use to help them to perform basic bodily functions.
The cuts - part of a rationalisation of the Drugs Refund Scheme introduced this summer - particularly affect wheelchair users who go to work, because their salary brings them over the medical card limit.
The Spinal Injuries Action Association, which has been unsuccessfully trying to have the cuts on some items reversed, is to meet health officials again this week in an attempt to resolve the problem.
The products for which refunds have been withdrawn include KY Gel, suppositories, disposable gloves and dressings. Many paralysed people have to use them for the most basic functions.
The Department of Health and Children said the items were removed from the subsidy scheme this summer when the lists of products which were approved under the scheme was synchronised with the list of products approved for medical card holders.
In general, over-the-counter items were no longer included on the list, it said, nor were products which are "advertised or promoted to the public".
But Ms Joan Carthy of the Spinal Injuries Action Association said that "a lot of the stuff they have taken off is ongoing medication which people need every day of the week".
Many of these items, she said, were available to people with spinal injuries who have medical cards. They were on a list of 14 items drawn up by the National Rehabilitation Hospital and accepted by the health boards for medical card purposes.
But people who go to work and whose earnings may bring them just above the medical card limit have now lost the subsidy they used to get on the £100 or more a month which they spend on these items. If the items were eligible for the subsidy, any expenditure over £42 a month would be refunded.
A wheelchair user, Mr Laz Mahon, said the cost to him of the removal of the subsidy for the items in question is £100 per month extra.
"These are items which I need really on a daily basis," he said.
Mr Mahon says he believed the Department did not research what the effects of the cuts would be before introducing them.
Mr Colm Whooley, of the Spinal Injuries Action Association, said he and his colleagues have been trying to get the Department to restore the subsidies for essential items but had not succeeded so far.
"In all the time the association has been set up this one problem has generated more calls than any other issue," he said.
The Department said it was satisfied that the list of items for which subsidy is provided "provides a comprehensive range of the most modern therapies".
The list "is of course subject to ongoing review and is amended on a monthly basis as new items are added to the list. The concerns of people with spinal injuries will be kept under review in this context".