Local pharmacist: medical card loss caused ‘fear and stress’

Sean McMahon

The Government finally made the decision today (Tuesday) to provide for the return of discretionary medical, or GP visit cards, to over 15,000 people. The cards will be valid until July 2015.
Local pharmacist Cian Murtagh told The Anglo-Celt that the removal of cards had caused “fear, panic and stress”.
The HSE welcomed the Government authorisation to make the necessary decisions to return medical cards and GP visit cards to those with a lifelong medical condition, acute illness, or disability, who had been granted a card on a discretionary basis.
The cards had been lost, causing outrage, in a review of services in July 2011.
The health authority also welcomed the decision of Government to provide €13m in additional full-year funding to the the body to cover the cost of returning the cards.
Today’s decision provides a basis on which discretionary medical or GP visit cards can be returned to over 15,000 people. These cards will be valid until July 2015.
The process of reinstating medical cards and GP cards to all those affected will now commence. It is estimated that this process will take three weeks. No action is required on the part of those affected - the HSE says it will be in contact with all those affected in the coming weeks.

‘Callous’
“It seems that a very callous and cold broad brush was being used without taking into account any of the individual cases”, said Mr Murtagh of Burke’s Medical Hall and who is a member of the Irish Pharmacy Union and former Chairman of the North East Region.
“We would be totally against people having their medical cards taken off them.
“Some people would have been getting them free for years and then were basically told that they would have to pay for them – they just would not be able to afford it.
“They should restore all the cards they have taken away and maybe down the road they can look at their threshold,” he said.

Threshold
The HSE’s decision to suspend reviews of medical cards where discretion is being applied, ie where the individual is over the income threshold but discretion is being applied as a result of medical circumstances, will also continue.
Mr Murtagh explained that when people lose their medical card, it is not just an issue about paying for the drugs but all the other services that go with it.
Respite care, for example, would also be lost and free home-care would also go and all of the auxiliary things like fitting out a house to suit a person with a particular illness - for example, stair lifts and specialist equipment.
If someone had a serious illness, however, like cancer, they were awarded a discretionary medical card.
“I have seen people basically rationing their drugs – not taking all their drugs on a particular day. They are handing in a prescription maybe with four items on it and they are asking, what is absolutely vital on that – that is all I want and this is not ideal at all. It is definitely an impediment to their treatment,” he added.
He estimated that between 5-10% of his customers lost their cards:.
“It is stressful for the people who have lost their cards and then you endeavour to get them registered on these drug payment schemes - the scheme where the maximum a family pays is €144 per month”.

House-bound people
Cian Murtagh said people who are house-bound or bed ridden require a lot of medicated dressing for beds sores. “There are a huge array of ointments that are supplied to medical card patients free – for example to people with leg ulcers and people who are bed bound. These are very expensive dressings and they are supplied by Pharmacists with no mark up what so ever. It comes from the HSE to the Pharmacist and then onto the people,” he said.
Mr Murtagh pointed out that these particular items are not available on the medical card scheme but they be accessed for medical card people, when the Pharmacist makes a special application for them.
He said that some of these dressings have a cost €200 or €300 per month “minimum”:
“That would be a massive worry for someone losing a medical, together with losing the Doctor, the drugs and the auxiliary services.”