Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was recently contacted by a man in my constituency who is in his early 50s and who, unfortunately, received a cancer diagnosis about eight months ago, fortunately within the early stages of the disease. Because of that, and because of his income of just under €50,000 a year, he cannot get a medical card. He has commitments, he has to pay down a mortgage and he has other loans and so on. He does not have health insurance. He has found now that all his savings have gone and that he is struggling with hospital appointments, the cost of cancer care and so on. A recent survey done by AIG found that the additional costs for a person who has cancer amount to €1,104 on average per month. The Marie Keating Foundation has found that many people are more stressed about the financial impact of cancer than their recovery from the disease. Clearly, the answer is to grant medical cards to people on an emergency basis, renewed annually, if they have a cancer diagnosis. It would not cost a fortune. We are talking about quite a small number of people, but it would have a huge impact on those families. I ask the Minister to speak to the Minister for Health to ensure that this provision is put in place.

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