HSE budget: Medical card number swap farcical, say doctors

Doctors have described the swapping around of medical card numbers by the Health Service Executive in its national service plan as “farcical”.

According to the health authority’s spending plan there will be 1,725,767 people with medical cards and 435,785 with GP visit cards at the end of they year.

It is predicting a 50,000 decrease in the number of people with medical cards next year at 1,675,767, but the number of GP visit cards will increase by 49,407 to 485,192.