Health expenses: A woman whose asthmatic daughter is on constant medication and requires hospitalisation several times a year has urged the Government to consider providing free healthcare to chronic asthmatics in this week's Budget.
Pauline Hazel, from Glasnevin in Dublin, argues that a scheme currently in existence called the Long Term Illness Scheme which allows people suffering from certain conditions such as diabetes and cystic fibrosis to avail of free drugs should also cover patients with severe forms of asthma.
Her daughter Alison's illness is so severe she misses an average of 50 days of school each year. The 15-year-old has already been in hospital five times this year and has missed 25 days of school since September.
Mrs Hazel said the cost of looking after her was huge because the family was not entitled to a medical card. This is because her husband, Martin, works full-time and she works part-time. They have not been able to get private health insurance cover for Alison due to the fact that she has had the condition since birth, she said.
"We find the financial burden too much to bear while trying to maintain a home with five other children," she said.
Some of her other five children are now working.
While the Hazel family are able to avail of the Government's Drugs Payments Scheme which means they pay no more than €85 a month on drugs for Alison, Mrs Hazel said it was not enough. Even with the Drug Payments Scheme they have to pay over €1,000 a year on drugs for their daughter.
In addition, Mrs Hazel points out they pay €55 a night for her hospital bed for at least 10 nights a year, which comes to €550, and an increase in this charge was announced in last month's Estimates.
"The social worker in Temple Street Hospital said I should try for a medical card or the Long Term Illness Scheme but we don't qualify for either," Mrs Hazel said.
Mrs Hazel said her daughter qualified for three hours' home tuition every week due to the amount of school she misses.
"You wonder why the Department of Education accepts she is chronically ill and entitled to benefits but the Department of Health don't," she said.
In a statement, the Department of Health said the conditions covered by the Long Term Illness Scheme were mental handicap, mental illness (for people under 16 only), phenylketonuria, cystic fibrosis, spina bifida, hydrocephalus, diabetes mellitus, diabetes insipidus, haemophilia, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophies, parkinsonism, conditions arising from thalidomide and acute leukaemia. And it said there were currently "no plans to amend the list of eligible conditions".
The chairwoman of the Asthma Society of Ireland, Angela Edghill, said the society had been seeking a change in the Long Term Illness Scheme for some time.
"We would love the Budget to address this but the Government seems to think the world would end if people with asthma were included," she said.
She said if the Long Term Illness scheme couldn't be extended, the society would certainly like to see people with asthma having better access to free GP services to have their condition monitored as well as access to the best drugs available to treat their condition rather than the cheapest ones.
There are around 470,000 people with asthma in the State and Ms Edghill said up to 100 asthma sufferers died "unnecessarily" every year from their condition. "There should be a strategy for dealing with it," she said.