Medical cards - Compassion shouldn’t be forgotten

Anyone unfortunate enough to develop cancer or some other serious condition will tell you the medical card is a godsend. Overnight, the stress of having to scrape the euro together while looking on helplessly as a loved one’s condition deteriorates vanishes as though the green and white card were a magic wand.

Even families whose income might be above the means threshold can find it hard to meet the cost of expensive lifesaving medicine. For them, the sense of relief at receiving a discretionary card is tangible.

Besides the cost factor, the card reinforces a sense of belonging. So it is not hard to visualise the numbing sensation of helplessness, mingled with crushing disappointment and mounting anger when a letter from the HSE drops through the letterbox, informing a family that a medical card was being removed or refused outright.

Besides having to go through this grim experience, the families concerned must also endure the bickering of politicians amid mounting allegations this hard-hearted Government has changed tack and is secretly taking back discretionary medical cards from those who need them and refusing to issue them to new applicants.

As the old saying goes, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. This cliché was brought to mind yesterday as Taoiseach Enda Kenny reiterated that policy had not changed regarding discretionary medical cards.

The increasingly bitter row follows reports earlier this year that medical cards were being removed from child cancer patients. Under pressure from Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, who offered evidence of a policy change, Mr Kenny held that a discretionary medical card was still given to anyone who needs one, even those who exceeded the income threshold.

Pinning down concrete facts can be difficult. According to Mr Kenny, the only reason fewer cards are being issued now is because more people qualify for them. As he put it: “It’s fallen by over 22,000 because those discretionary medical card owners now qualify for an ordinary medical card as they meet the income eligibility.”

He went on say that “there is not, and never has been, an automatic entitlement to a medical card for persons with a specific illness”, adding, however, that this did not mean people with serious illnesses did not qualify for a medical card.

To support his contention that a “general cull” of medical cards was under way and that discretionary cards were being targeted, Mr Martin cited the case of a Limerick woman who was refused a medical card despite being diagnosed with breast cancer last February. Eight months later, having undergone a double mastectomy, she is receiving radiotherapy in Limerick and bone cancer treatment in Cork.

If ever a medical card were warranted, this seems to be a case in point. It is hard to see on what grounds such a callous denial could be justified. It will deepen perceptions that discretionary medical cards are being targeted — if not directly through policy change then by stealth. Amid the cut-and-thrust of political debate, the Government should not forget that the lives of people stricken by serious illness are at stake. This makes it paramount that compassion as well as age and cost factors should decide who gets a medical card.