Ghost medical cards: doctors are victims of the blame game
Both the article and the editorial state that general practitioners have been overpaid to the tune of 20 million. This figure has appeared in other newspapers and is attributed to (always unnamed) Government sources.
Given the number of medical cards involved and the rates at which GPs are paid for looking after elderly patients, objective measurement would suggest an overpayment of 4m to 5m at most.
Furthermore, your articles make no reference whatsoever to the fact that GPs have been systematically and chronically underpaid for other age groups (such as new-borns and 16-year-olds whose cards are summarily cancelled).
The IMO has welcomed Health Minister Micheál Martin’s announcement that there is to be a comprehensive and ongoing review of medical card databases and administration. We are confident that such a comprehensive review (and not the self-serving and one-sided exercise that has taken place to date) may well result in a net payment to GPs.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the debacle that was the extension of the GMS scheme to all citizens over 70 has resulted in a ‘blame game’ between the Department of Finance, the Department of Health and Children and the 10 health boards, and that GPs are being unfairly scapegoated for errors which are not of their making.
The IMO is the only professional body licensed to negotiate with Government on behalf of Irish GPs and, contrary to the impression given by your article, there has been no threat of strike action on this matter.
Rather we are confident that a fair and transparent process will reveal no significant overpayment to our members.
Most offensive of all was the suggestion in your editorial that GPs might “be penalised and even jailed for criminal behaviour”.
GPs did not make any claims for payments in respect of these “ghost patients”. The maintenance of accurate lists is the sole responsibility of the health boards. They remain on GPs’ lists sometimes for a year or more after they have died or moved away because of the inefficient information systems in the health boards.
GPs, in fact, have no way of knowing from week to week which patients they are being paid for. They fall victim to this system as often as they gain by it.
Had the Irish Examiner clarified these facts in advance with the IMO, such an outrageous and unjustified charge would not have been levelled against hard-working and caring professionals who do a difficult job to the best of their ability in an environment often devoid of support or corporate responsibility.
Dr Ronan Boland,
Irish Medical Organisation,
10, Fitzwilliam Place,
Dublin 2.
