The Irish Medical Organisation has claimed legislation to facilitate free GP care for the under-sixes is “draconian” and “an attempt to unilaterally re-write the relationship between GPs and the HSE”.

More than 40% of GPs said they would not or were unlikely to participate in the proposed scheme to extend free GP care to children under six.

An organisation representing family doctors has warned that 150 general practices could shut down in the near future due to funding cutbacks by the HSE.

AGE Action has welcomed the statement by Health Minister James Reilly that GPs should not be charging medical card patients for routine blood tests.

THE Irish Pharmacy Union has said the Government is “entrenching outdated patterns of primary care delivery” by cutting payments to pharmacists in order to make annual savings of €36 million.

THE Department of Health suspected as long as 18 years ago that pharmacists were defrauding the General Medical Services Payments Board of almost €14 million a year in claims for discounted medicine prices, it was reported in a High Court judgment yesterday.

TÁNAISTE Mary Harney has ruled out making acupuncture and other alternative therapies available on the medical card.

THE Government has overestimated the number of people with free medical care by 10,000 according to figures presented yesterday by the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO).

THE Department of Health was unable to say yesterday when it will publish a report examining the huge costs of extending the medical card to everybody over 70.

THE numbers employed in administration and management within the health services nearly doubled between 1995 and 2002.

Around €6m has been overpaid to GPs for deceased medical card holders and for people holding invalid cards.