Sir, – I am writing because I am furious – but not surprised – that the HSE has managed to lose my 90-year-old mother’s application to change doctor under the medical card scheme.
I dealt with the paperwork and submitted the form in April. I rang them on May 11th (three layers of options and button-pressing) and was told the form had been received and "would be actioned" in a week's time. I rang again on June 2nd and was told it had no record of the form being received. The man said he would "raise a query" on it, and sounded as if this was similar to raising the Titanic.
I informed him my mother needed to go to the new doctor within five days, and what was to be done if the matter was not sorted? He refused to answer the question and asked me to ring back on Friday. I rang on Thursday instead and no, no word had come back. Nothing could be done. I asked to speak to a supervisor and went through the whole rigmarole for the third time. I may as well have spoken to the cat. No responsibility taken, no apology offered, nothing could be done except to raise the aforementioned query to “high priority”.
No investigation could take place unless I supplied the new doctor’s GMS number.
I asked the supervisor could he get it from the doctor himself.
There was a stunned silence. No, that was not possible; the doctor would only give it to patients. I pointed out that due to the HSE losing the form, my mother was not a patient.
So yesterday I drove the 30 miles down the country to my mother’s doctor, got the form signed again, went to the post office and paid €6 out of my mother’s pension to register the letter, and sent it off again.
The irony is that I am a registered nurse and therefore have some idea of how the system works. What happens to people who have nobody to expend endless hours fighting the bureaucracy? Meanwhile, my mother needs new glasses but there is no trace of her medical card number on the system so the form cannot be sent off until the new card is issued, if it ever is.
There is an urgent need for a free advocacy service for vulnerable people who fall foul of the uncaring bureaucracy of the HSE, such as elderly people and homeless people who have no medical cards. – Yours, etc,
MARESE HICKEY,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.