Sir, – Your newspaper (October 15th) reported on an internal HSE memo which outlined potential money-saving mechanisms including the formal suspension of the issuing of new medical cards for the remainder of the year. This was immediately denied by the Minister for Health, who stated that the very idea was ludicrous and wouldn’t happen as long as he was in charge. He also restated the mantra that centralisation of the medical card application process in Dublin would guarantee a 15-day turnaround for all properly completed applications.
In my practice, we have become increasingly concerned in recent months about the delay in granting medical cards to patients who are obviously eligible because of their circumstances. These include many new-born babies whose parents are already medical card holders. We rang the relevant section of the HSE on Monday and were told that no new applications have been looked at since August 10th; and also that new babies can/will only be granted a medical card after they have been allocated a PPS number. The problem with this is that another area of the public service (Department of Social Welfare) is responsible for the issuing of said PPS numbers and the current delay for this can be up to four months!
It seems obvious to me that there is now an informal embargo on the issuing of medical cards being pursued by the HSE and Department of Health in a rather crude attempt to save money on the back of vulnerable adults and children. In spite of huge financial pressures on their practices, many doctors choose to and have little option but to provide a service without payment to these patients but are unable to issue medical card prescriptions to which these patients are entitled.
Jonathan Irwin asks (November 8th) if the health care system has gone mad. Let me assure him that not alone is it mad, as he has frequently highlighted in relation to the Jack Jill Foundation, but that it is also increasingly bad, as the current deliberate non-issuing of medical cards to eligible people highlights. Shame on the politicians, senior managers and administrators who are allowing this to happen. – Yours, etc,