Charge for out-of-hours medical card service: GP

Financially stretched medical card holders who call GPs out of hours should be forced to pay a €5 penalty instead of receiving the support for free, a doctor has claimed.

Former Irish Medical Organisation president Ken Egan made the suggestion on the final day of the union’s annual general conference in Killarney, Co Kerry.

Hitting out at what he described as the “worried well” seeking care they do not need, the Mayo-based GP told delegates the financial penalty should be imposed to bring an end to the situation. He added that the €5 charge, which he likened to the 50c drug prescription charge, would stop these people from seeking “test after test” for non-existent illnesses.

“It’s a step towards trying to bring in some restraint on the abuse of the health service,” he said. “The demand for the health service is insatiable.”

While the €5 charge motion was roundly rejected by the conference, Dr Egan said something must be done to address “excessive demands” on scarce health resources.

He claimed he is aware of one case where a man in Mayo allegedly used the out-of-hours health service to get a free lift home.

In recent weeks, Dr Egan said, the man called him complaining of chest pains. Despite Mayo General Hospital in Castlebar being closer, the man insisted on being transferred by ambulance to Roscommon County Hospital.

Dr Egan said that, once the man was given the all-clear at Castlebar, he insisted on being driven home from the facility by taxi. It emerged the would-be patient had missed his last bus home and the entire call was an attempt to get a free journey home, said Dr Egan.

Meanwhile, another former IMO president, Galway GP Martin Daly, has called for an urgent examination of the medical card system after witnessing the damage its flaws are causing to chronically ill peoples’ lives.

Dr Daly said he currently treats a 62-year-old who recently became unemployed after working for 40 years. For the past six months, the unnamed man had to wait to have his medical card application ratified, a period in which he did not have the money to pay for vital medicines for both himself and his wife.

The HSE has said improvements are taking place in the applications processing system.The service said that the 57,960-person strong applications backlog highlighted in January is now down to 5,460 and will be cleared entirely by the end of this month.

It added that 96% of applications are now dealt with within 15 days.