Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Bill exempts children under 16 years old from hospital inpatient charges. Sinn Féin welcomes this, but the Bill does not go far enough. The Government should abolish hospital inpatient charges for all patients. This should start with abolishing inpatient charges for all children and dependants, not just those aged under 16 years. The Minister is looking for a quick win to mask the lack of progress on universal healthcare. Over the past two years I have dealt with many people who have had to endure long waiting periods for hospital procedures before finally getting an appointment.

This Bill is an important step to help families who are struggling, but the Government could do much more to help them. The Government is also too reactionary in some areas, with no vision or forward thinking. It must go further to reduce the burden on struggling workers and families, especially on older people. Measures such as phasing out car parking charges for hospital patients and phasing out prescription charges must be prioritised. There has been no progress on expanding free GP care, despite the Oireachtas passing legislation in 2020. There are people whose children have completely missed free GP care. It was announced when their children were young, but the slow progress meant their children have outgrown it. They simply could not get it.

The Government has not done enough to train more GPs and dentists and to expand public primary care. I asked a parliamentary question last week about the number of dentists in County Laois who had left the dental scheme that provides dental care for medical card holders. The answer was that 14 dentists have left the scheme in the past two years and there is just one dentist left in the scheme. There is one dentist who accepts medical cards for a county with a population in excess of 90,000 people. What is the Government doing to address this crisis? Nothing. It should be ashamed of itself. I asked the same question regarding County Kildare. The figures available relate to Kildare and west Wicklow. In April 2021, there were 46 dentists accepting medical cards. This has dropped to 38 this year, with just 28 dentists submitting claims for May. That suggests there are a further ten dentists who are not taking on new medical card patients or who have taken the decision to leave the scheme. This is a very serious crisis.

Anyone who has ever had a toothache knows there are few pains as bad. However, a medical card holder must wait in line with no prospect of an appointment. Otherwise, he or she will have to pay for private care, if that person can afford it. Obviously, the reason a person has a medical is that he or she cannot afford private healthcare. In the past month, patients of a dentist in County Laois have told me their dentist has written to them saying the dentist is leaving the scheme, and the patients of two dentists in south Kildare have told me the same. We are living in the sixth richest country in the world and have a health system that belongs in the Third World. That is despite spending €21 billion last year on our health service. I also asked the Minister for Health what options are available to medical card holders who are unable to find a dentist who is taking on new patients. The reply was:

Both I and the Government have been concerned for some time that medical card patients in some parts of the country have been experiencing problems in accessing dental services. The problem became particularly acute over the last couple of years as a significant number of contracted dentists chose to opt out of the D[ental] T[reatment] S[ervices] S[cheme].

I refer to what the Minister said earlier, "To address this problem, I secured an additional €10 million ... [in budget 2022] to provide expanded dental health care for medical card holders including ... the reintroduction of scale and polish." There are no dentists. The Minister might be providing the money, but there are no dentists available. It is ludicrous.

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