Patients to pay more for beds and health insurance
In addition, those with private health insurance can expect to pay higher premiums because of a 10% increase in the cost of a private bed in a public hospital. This follows a 25% increase last year.
The latest €5 increases will bring the cost of attending A&E and over-nighting in a public bed to €60 from January 1.
Criticising the increases contained in yesterday’s Health Estimate as “bad news for patients”, Fine Gael health spokesperson Dr Liam Twomey said they represented a doubling of charges since 2002.
Irish Patients’ Association chairman Stephen McMahon said they were concerned GPs would hike their charges to match the A&E increase.
Although health got the biggest increase in the Estimates, only a quarter of the additional €1 billion will fund new services. The remainder, €750 million, will fund existing services, salaries and medical inflation. Finance Minister Brian Cowen has also set aside €400m for repayment of illegal nursing home charges.
This year’s Health Estimate is targeted at cutting waiting lists, boosting GP out-of-hours services, improving disability services and increasing the number of doctors.
The National Treatment Purchase Fund is to receive an additional €13m and is expected to treat an additional 3,500 patients this year.
Disability and mental health services will receive €100m. Within this, Tánaiste and Health Minister Mary Harney specified that she was allocating €1.2m to support the National Strategy for Action on Suicide Prevention.
Primary care services will receive €16m to increase out-of-hours GP services and to boost by 300 the number of staff supporting the 75-100 primary care teams the minister claimed were around the country.
Dr Twomey declared himself “baffled” by the claim, given that just 10 primary care pilot teams were set up under the 2001 Primary Care Strategy.
Irish Medical Organisation GP Committee chairman Dr Martin Daly said the €16m was a paltry sum to allocate to primary care, given the Government’s own strategy had envisaged an investment of €1.3bn.
He also expressed his disgust at the Tánaiste’s failure to extend to doctors the tax incentives private developers enjoy when it comes to building private hospitals. He said she was ignoring the service providers who wished to develop their own practices.
The Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland welcomed a €4.78m allocation, on the back of the Pollock report which earlier this year revealed a 438% deficit in specialist staff.
A sum of €60m was earmarked for the commissioning of a number of new hospital units; €9m towards the National Cancer Strategy and €3m to the seriously understaffed neurology and neurophysiology services.
Renal services received €8m at a time when 200 new patients a year are using the services, and €3m will go towards implementing the recommendations of the Obesity Task Force.
Capital funding of €578.5m will facilitate improvements in the health infrastructure nationally.
There was no increase in the Drugs Payment Scheme threshold, which rose by €7 last year. Neither was there any reference to medical cards or any additional announcements with regard to relieving A&E pressures.
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