John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Regarding the medical cards, I welcome that the Health Service Executive is getting all these systems in place to analyse how it spends that much money on the medical cards and that in future it will be able to give us much more information. I welcome also that it is getting control of the vast bulk of the applications but if I filled the Gallery this morning with people who had their medical cards taken from them or who found out their medical cards were taken from them, they would not believe what they were hearing from Mr. Hennessy. There are cases which I do not want to go through one by one but rather I will give Mr. Hennessy two extreme examples, and they represent quite a number of people who have turned up at my clinic, and I am sure is the case elsewhere. The son of a 91 year old woman went to the chemist to get the medication and was told he could not have it because the medical card has been cut off. I have raised this with the HSE already.

The second case involved a woman undergoing cancer treatment for a second time who applied for a medical card but was turned down. The reason I raise that particular case is because Mr. Hennessy has done something else in regard to the medical cards. When someone applies for a medical card and is refused, he or she is entitled to a review or an appeal or may go for a review and automatically go to appeal subsequently. I have seen letters issued from the HSE telling people who asked for a review or an appeal that because they have offered no new evidence they will not be granted the review or appeal. That is quite different from what I have experienced with the system previously because in any decision the wrong decision may have been made.

I have attended meetings with general practitioners who have complained bitterly that they are being forced to write letter after letter to the HSE in support of an applicant who is entitled to the medical card but who for some reason is not getting their message across. Consultants who are now being asked for letters by patients to support their application are becoming annoyed that they are being drawn into a whole bureaucracy that they simply not cannot afford to manage in their day's work.

Has the HSE consulted with the GPs on this issue, the changes to the medical cards for children under five or GP cards because their complaints are that they are stressed by much of what is being imposed on them? I would like Mr. Hennessy's views on the review and appeal system. For those patients who are waiting for an application, a review or an appeal there should be a process in place whereby the card is kept open until such time as they are refused and are outside the system following a review or an appeal.