Polio survivors to seek medical cards

POLIO survivors hit with a secondary illness are to seek automatic entitlement to medical cards at a Government committee next week.

Representatives of the Post Polio Support Group (PPSG) said many are facing financial hardship because of a second debilitating illness know as the Late Effects of Polio (LEP).

This can cause serious loss of mobility years after the person first contracted polio, according to PPSG administrator Anthony Carrick. “Up to 60% of those who had polio will contract LEP. For years, they may have been dealing with a bad leg with no further debilitating effect for 30 or 40 years.

“Suddenly there is a marked deterioration so that a person can move from using a stick, to crutches, to a manual wheelchair, to a powered wheelchair rapidly.

Yet LEP is not included on the Department of Health’s list of long-term illnesses, he said. Mr Carrick said polio survivors with LEP had no rights, “though most who got it fought to maintain mobility and independence and contributed to society”.

“There is no scheme from which they can benefit, they are not automatically entitled to medical cards; they do not benefit from the Drug Payment Scheme because there is no drug to deal with LEP and there are no respite or physiotherapy services available,” he said.

Earlier this year, a PPSG- commissioned study on the late effects of polio confirmed there are over 7,200 polio survivors in Ireland. From those who contracted polio between the 1930s and 1960s, up to 4,200 suffer from LEP.

The report said the State “was showing little interest in them”. Yesterday, the chairman of the Oireachtas committee which will meet with the PPSG next Thursday said he believed there was a case for the inclusion of polio on the Government’s long-term illness list.

“The long-term illness list is not definitive, it wouldn’t be a massive imposition to open and I expect the general view of the committee will be to recommend it for inclusion to Health Minister Micheál Martin,” said Fianna Fáil TD Batt O’Keeffe.

Polio is a viral disease which can cause flu-like symptoms or, in worst cases, paralysis or death. It has been virtually eradicated in the West with mass vaccination programmes.