HSE overcharged pensioner €3,000

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) acted illegally in including the income of a spouse of a long-stay patient when calculating nursing home fees, the Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, revealed yesterday.

The Ombudsman’s Office that led the way in establishing that health boards had been unjustly overcharging long stay public patients for many years, has now discovered the 2005 National Guidelines on Long Stay Charges are out of line with the regulations.

The Department of Health, which accepts Ms O’Reilly’s conclusions, has informed the Ombudsman that it now intends issuing revised regulations to the HSE.

It is likely that there could be more cases similar to the one highlighted by the Ombudsman, but the HSE anticipates that the numbers will be small.

The HSE claimed yesterday that current guidelines “were only being applied on an interim basis” because of the need to reintroduce charges with immediate effect.

A spokesperson said provisions have been made to address potential anomalies when new guidelines are introduced next month.

Labour’s deputy leader Liz McManus, said the Tánaiste and Health Minister, Mary Harney, must be held responsible for the latest nursing home overcharging shambles.

“This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into Minister. It is inexcusable that legislation passed in 2005 was not properly implemented by the Government,” Ms McManus declared.

Last year, the Government admitted it owed refunds to thousands of patients and then introduced the Health (Charges for In-Patient Services) Regulations that legalised charges after assessing a patient’s income.

Current national guidelines on long-stay charges state that, in the case of a married couple, a spouse’s income is taken into account in determining the weekly charge for in-patient services.

The guidelines have now been found to be inconsistent with the relevant legislation and regulations that provide for the imposition of charges only on persons to whom the in-patient services are provided.

Ms O’Reilly, who published her annual report for 2005 yesterday, referred to a case involving a woman whose income was also assessed in relation to her husband’s fees. He was charged €120 a week for in-patient services as a public patient — €23.90 per week in excess of his weekly social welfare pension.

Ms O’Reilly said the State was going to refund the family involved and apologise for the trauma caused. The pensioner is owed about €3,000.

Meanwhile, Ms O’Reilly said she was unhappy with the way the HSE Western Area had investigated a complaint from a woman about her surgical care for breast cancer.

The woman, who underwent an operation on a Friday, claimed she had not been seen by either the surgeon or his senior team as a patient over the following five days.

It was also learned at the report launch that the Ombudsman is due to take responsibility for voluntary hospitals by the end of the year.