State fails to recoup €8m paid to GPs for care of dead patients

NOT one cent of the over €8 million paid out to GPs for the care of elderly medical card patients who were dead has been recovered despite Government promises to recoup the full amount.

Around 1,780 GPs were overpaid amounts from €31 to €42,000 in respect of almost 30,000 former patients in the over 70s age bracket.

Attempts to have the money repaid to the taxpayer are tied up in an industrial relations dispute and also hampered by the threat of legal action on other doctors’ grievances.