DCA parents cautiously welcome medical card

News in the budget that recipients of domiciliary care allowance (DCA) will also have access to a medical card was given a guarded welcome by parents.

Some claim the development was moot, given the current state of waiting lists for services.

DCA is a monthly payment of €309, made on behalf of a child aged 16 or under who has a disability that requires ongoing care. The Facebook group, DCA Warriors, which has 11,000 members, has led the charge for better services for children. The payment has been the subject of scrutiny, because of the high level of applications rejected, and the high number of rejections then reversed on appeal.

Marion Fitzsimons, a spokesperson for the DCA Warriors, said of the budget initiative: “For a lot of families, it is helpful to have a medical card for your child, but there is nowhere for your GP to refer a child, because of waiting lists.”

She said waiting times for services such as early assessment and for access to child and adolescent mental health teams can be between 18 months and two years, and when a child is very young quick access is essential.

“Speech and language therapy, occupational therapy — there are waiting lists for all of these,” she said. “They need to be seen as early as possible.”

The DCA Warriors recently called for the introduction of an Ombudsman for Education and have been vocal on a range of issues regarding children’s access to services, but Ms Fitzsimons said many children on the autistic spectrum were physically fine and might not require regular doctor visits, whereas other children will, and are more likely to benefit from the new initiative.

In 2015, 6,422 allowance DCA applications were received last year, and 6,313 were fully processed. Of those, 2,102 were refused — almost exactly one third.