Minister defends rise in A&E charges
Health Minister, Mary Harney, insisted however, the increase was to discourage people from unnecessarily going to a busy A&Es.
The charge would not apply to those who had a letter from their GP and medical card holders.
“This is not just about raising money because the sum of money is not huge. It is about discouraging people from going in the first instance to an A&E and encouraging them to go to the GP,” she said.
The Minister also said the cost of a private or semi-private bed in a public hospital was being increased by 20%.
Ms Harney sad she has been increasing the cost of these beds each year because she did not believe they should be subsidised by the taxpayer.
“We want to get to the economic costing of those beds and are close to that. It will add about 4% to the cost of private health insurance,” she said.
The Minister did not, however, dwell on the Drug Payment Scheme (DPS) threshold that was being increased from €90 to €100 per month to achieve savings of €15 million.
“The Government is set to make a bad situation worse by indulging in sickening Fianna Fáil stealth taxes and charges that hurt ordinary taxpayers and patients,” Dr Reilly said last night.
The minister also announced that a new innovative programme of financing the development of 200 primary care centres had been brought forward by the Health Service Executive.
She said the centres would be totally financed by the private sector and equated to a €1.5bn investment with 50 centres coming on-stream in 2010.
