Dentistry to be hit by medical card move

Plans to centralise the processing of all applications for medical cards represent a ‘sinister HSE agenda’ to save money by making it harder and slower for eligible people to obtain medical cards, according to IMPACT trade union.

IMPACT, whose members recently voted to take industrial action if the HSE forces the issue, says it is taking the unprecedented step of writing to every elected public representative in the country asking them to pledge their opposition to the proposed replacement of local services with a centralised applications system, which it says will:

• Make the application process harder, slower and less accessible 

• Dramatically reduce the system’s responsiveness
• Remove flexibility and safeguards from a system that currently benefits from the local knowledge and assistance provided by health staff and others
• Depersonalise the process, forcing vulnerable and elderly citizens to depend on email, recorded telephone messages and other ‘faceless’ technologies.

The union points to the recent centralisation of medical card applications for the over-70s, which account for just 5% of the total and resulted in long delays, mistakes and poor response times, leaving patients and health professionals frustrated and confused.

‘The HSE now plans to extend these arrangements to all medical card applicants. This will be a bigger and much more complex task, which is bound to cause chaos and confusion for medical card applicants,’ according to IMPACT official Gerry Dolan.


Mr Dolan went on to comment: ‘IMPACT offered to participate in a genuinely inclusive examination of real improvements and better efficiencies in the current locally-based system. We believe the HSE refused this offer because it has a more sinister agenda of saving money by making it harder and slower to obtain a medical card at a time when thousands more people are becoming eligible because of the recession.’