Health: The decision by the Government to make no provision for the extension of medical-card eligibility in this year's Estimates was described yesterday by the St Vincent de Paul Society as a bitter blow to low-income families.
The society's vice-president, Mr John Monaghan, said that over the last year his organisation had received an increased number of calls from people who could not pay household bills because of having to pay for their children to see a doctor.
"We have also had calls from families who cannot afford to attend a doctor or afford to obtain prescription drugs after attending their GP. That is a real problem," he said.
The failure to extend medical-card eligibility was, he said, "really very upsetting because they did promise some time back to grant an additional 200,000 medical cards". That promise was made in the National Health strategy two years ago and in the latest Programme for Government.
There was a real need for medical-card cover to be provided to children in low-income families, as well as to families on the minimum wage or low-income supplement, he said.
"If the State is willing to give money to families to bring their income up it does not make sense to tell them they are going to have to look after their own medical costs," he added.
A further blow, he said, was the raising by €8 to €78 of the threshold after which people could apply for a refund under the Drug Payments Scheme. "We had hoped it would come down," he said.
And he said the €5 increase in A&E charges to €45 might not seem a lot to the Minister for Health, but €5 could be a significant proportion of what low-income families had to spare at the end of a week.
Meanwhile the Children's Rights Alliance said it was unacceptable of the Government to break its promise to extend medical-card eligibility for the third successive year.