The Minister for Health, Ms Harney, has been urged by the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), ahead of the publication of today's estimates, not to tinker with medical card eligibility. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
It does not want the cards given out other than on the basis of a means test.
Ms Harney said recently she planned to prioritise families with young children when extending medical card eligibility. However, the IMO said this would be discriminatory.
IMO GP committee chairman Dr Martin Daly said when medical cards were given to one particular group before - the over 70s - it created an administrative nightmare, and led to gross inequity in the system.
He said medical cards should only be handed out on the basis of a means test.
"I'd also caution the Minister that any attempt to tinker with eligibility other than on a means-tested basis creates new discrepancies within the system."
In its pre-budget submission, published yesterday, the IMO called for medical cards to be given to every person on or below the minimum wage of €273 a week.
This would mean giving out an additional 450,000 medical cards.
Dr Daly said single people on low incomes and couples with no children who were on low incomes should be as entitled to medical cards as families on low wages with children.
Furthermore, he said, it required no negotiation with the IMO to extend medical card eligibility to 40 per cent of the population (28 per cent are now covered) "once it's done on a fair, means-tested basis".
Ms Harney said later she would have to prioritise, in the context of money available to her. "Any decision I am going to make on medical cards will be very much focused on those that need them most. . .they would include families with children but they also include people that may not have children, adults who are on low incomes who may not at the moment have access to medical cards.
"I want to prioritise patients that are in greatest need, including children. Many of the difficulties that arise in this area arise in families where sometimes parents don't have the resources to take the child to the doctor. I want to try and end that situation as much as we can."
Meanwhile the IMO also called in its pre-budget submission for an extra 5,000 acute hospital beds over the next three years, an extra 1,500 hospital consultants, the extension of BreastCheck and the provision of a national cervical cancer screening programme. It also wants investment in a major public relations campaign to encourage parents to vaccinate their children.
In an attempt to improve public health it also wants the Government to increase the cost of 20 cigarettes by €2 a packet, and increase excise duty on alcohol by 20 per cent.
In addition, the organisation wants more investment in primary care. IMO president Dr James Reilly described the money put into GP co-ops across the State to date as "peanuts".