Medical cards a ‘lottery’ for motor neurone sufferers
The medical card situation has now become a lottery, according to a consultant neurologist who cares for the majority of Irish patients with the disease.
In a damning rebuke of the HSE response to medical card requests, Professor Orla Hardiman described how the HSE makes her patients endure a tortuous process when applying for assistance after which they often face refusal.
“It was never entirely a foregone conclusion that people with motor neurone disease would get medical cards but during the boom time we were generally able to obtain cards for people on compassionate grounds by writing letters,” said Ms Hardiman, clinical professor of neurology at the University of Dublin and a consultant neurologist at Beaumont Hospital. “What has happened now is that the process we used in the past often does not result in awarding of a medical card.”
“Now people are asked to provide a huge amount of information about their income and their means which is not the grounds on which we are asking.
“You can get medical cards based on your income and on the grounds of having a rapidly progressive and terminal illness. We apply a lot of the time on the basis of the latter. They get repeated letters from the HSE asking them for further information, delaying everything.
“Then many people are turned down, even on the basis of the discretionary application that we make.”
In recent times, she said, a number of her patients who had been awarded medical cards are having them withdrawn, maybe two years into their illness with six to nine months to live.
“It is unconscionable from my point of view,” said Prof Hardiman. “It is a terrible reflection on the way we live and on our society and the way we provide care for people.”
She said the practice was not very cost effective as it meant that, as a result, fewer patients could be cared for in their own communities and, therefore, ended up in hospital.
However, in a statement, the HSE said it viewed applications by MND sufferers compassionately. “While no automatic entitlement to a medical card is based on a particular medical condition, the HSE is extremely sympathetic to the situation of motor neurone disease patients and their cases are assessed with this in mind.”
However, Prof Hardiman said that this has not been her experience in dealing with the HSE. “I write four or five letters a week either in support of an appeal who have had a medical card turned down or in support of someone who has had a medical card withdrawn.
“So, while this may be the enunciated policy of the HSE at official level, on the ground that is not actually what is happening and on the ground is where I am working.
“Unfortunately for the patients, what they are experiencing is not what the HSE has stated as policy.”
“As far as I can see, it seems to be a bit of a lottery,” Ms Hardiman said.
