Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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693. To ask the Minister for Health if medical card applicants are considered exempt from medical expenses such as hospital stay charges until a decision is made on their application. [1050/19]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Health Act 1970 (as amended) provides that all persons ordinarily resident in the country are eligible, subject to certain charges, to public in-patient hospital services. The current public hospital statutory in-patient charge is €80 per day, up to a maximum of €800 in any period of 12 consecutive months. All persons accessing public in-patient services in a public hospital are liable for the statutory public-inpatient charge, subject to a number of exemptions, including where a person is a medical cardholder.

The legislative framework therefore obliges the HSE to levy the statutory in-patient charge on all patients not covered by an exemption. As noted, medical card holders are exempt from hospital charges, however the exemption is only valid from the date of issue of the medical card. Therefore patients continue to be liable for any charges which occurred before a medical card has been issued.