Breast cancer patient Anne finally gets her medical card

A breast cancer patient who has undergone a double mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, has been granted a discretionary medical card more than a full year after she began the application process.

Anne Sweeney, 56, from Bruff, Co Limerick, was granted the entitlement after “going through the wringer” according to Fianna Fáil TD Niall Collins.

She was featured on the front page of the Irish Examiner last October, highlighting her eight-month wait for help with her GP, medical and other health bills.

At that stage, she was struggling to get a response on whether she would be granted the card.

Her application was turned down in November, despite medical bills amounting to €50-€60 some weeks — on top of the requirement for a special injection costing €144 every couple of weeks.

She fell sick with further complications and did not get around to submitting her appeal until early February. On Tuesday night, she was informed by the HSE that a card would be granted.

“I was relieved naturally enough. It will make things that bit easier. All I was looking for were my rights. I’m not looking for anything out of the ordinary, I’m not trying to milk the system and I said that to them.”

But she is still annoyed about the way she was treated by the system all along.

“It was so inconclusive, I was being passed around and couldn’t get any answers.

“I should have got it when I was diagnosed because I was told I was entitled to it.”

The Irish Examiner has previously highlighted that over 1,000 people a month lost their discretionary medical cards last year. But the Government has consistently denied there was a policy to withdraw those granted cards based on medical need, rather than financial circumstances alone.