HSE is ‘failing our elderly’ with its new charges

THE HSE is worse than Ryanair for “slapping charges on everything that moves”, the Labour Party claimed after the Irish Examiner revealed elderly and disabled patients are to be charged for essential equipment such as bed pans and drip stands.

In what has been described as a “spectacular failure of the health service”, aids and appliances worth less than €100 will no longer be purchased for supply to patients who traditionally had been issued with them through community health nurses or on leaving hospital.

Health Minister Mary Harney is expected to be grilled on the matter in the Dáil by Fine Gael spokesperson on older people Paul Connaughton, who said it was a “new low” for the HSE.