Government medical card figures wrong, say doctors

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).

While the General Medical Services (GMS) payments board puts the number of medical card holders at 29.22% of the population - or 1.1 million people - the IMO said the latest Census figures tell a different story.

The IMO analysis shows the Government figure fails to take into account the population increase in the last Census, reducing medical card cover to 28.3% of the population - or approximately 10,000 people less.

The disparity was highlighted yesterday at the AGM of the IMO in Killarney, Co Kerry.

The organisation was also highly critical of the low-earning thresholds to qualify for a medical card. In a position paper on the issue, the IMO highlighted the fact that a single person under the age of 66 cannot earn more than 56% of the national minimum wage, or €153.50, in order to be eligible for free medical care.

Although the thresholds increased by 7.5% in 2005, it was less than the increase in the rate of unemployment assistance for the same period, which rose by 8%.

The IMO warned “the level of hardship for those at the lower end of the income scale will increase as illness goes under-diagnosed and under treated.”

Despite concern for the number of low-earners excluded from the GMS scheme, doctors reiterated their opposition to the new “doctor visit” medical card.

Outgoing IMO president Joe Reilly said: “We are increasingly uneasy at an emergent policy that seems to favour full medical cards for those that are not means tested [over 70s], while those on low incomes are to be given partial cards - the exact nature of which we are unsure.”

Doctors oppose the new card on the grounds it was unilaterally imposed and because it does not entitle the holder to free medicines.

The IMO also questioned Government figures on bed capacity. According to the organisation, 1,495 beds out of an existing 11,832 are lost to the system due to inappropriate usage such as delayed discharge. In 2004, Tallaght Hospital had 20-30 patients on trolleys in A&E on average, while on the wards there were 30-40 elderly patients fit for discharge but no elderly beds available. Moreover, bed numbers quoted as “official” figures by the Department of Health are skewed, the IMO said, because they do not take account of wards closed for cost-saving reasons.

It said: “For example, Mullingar has a “shelled-out wing for 100 beds lying idle since 1997... in Letterkenny, a similar situation exists.” The IMO also questioned the ability of the Hanly report on health reform to add an extra 3,000 beds to the system saying “it fails to point out that the proposed re-configuration would remove approximately 6,000 beds”.