Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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206. To ask the Minister for Health the efforts to ensure that a person not from a particular area but resident there for the purpose of employment can avail of all available health services including general practitioner care when the person is the holder of a medical card; the remedies a person can avail of if he or she is unable to find a general practitioner capable of taking on an additional medical card holder; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29723/18]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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A person who holds a medical card must register with a General Practitioner who holds a contract with the HSE to provide services to eligible people under the GMS scheme. If a medical card holder moves temporarily from their official postal address, and is resident in an area not ordinarily served by their GMS GP, they will be regarded as "temporarily resident" and can avail of GP services from any GP who holds a GMS contract.

If a person who holds a medical card intends to relocate to a new area for longer than three months and/or on a permanent basis, they must change their choice of GP under the Medical Card/GP Visit Card scheme and register with another GP who holds a GMS contract in their new area. This can be done by submitting a Change of Doctor form to the HSE. The form should be completed and signed by the person's new GP and returned to HSE Client Registration Unit, Primary Care Reimbursement Service, Exit 5, M50, North Road, Finglas, Dublin 11. Change of Doctor forms are available from all HSE Local Health Offices and online at the following website: .

Where a GMS patient experiences difficulty in finding a GP to accept him/her as a patient, the HSE has the power to assign that person to a GP's GMS patient list where the person has been removed from another GP's list or refused entry onto a GP's list, and the person has unsuccessfully applied to at least three GPs in the area who are contracted to provide services under the GMS.