THE NEW centralised system for the processing of medical card applications for those aged over 70 years was yesterday described as “completely and utterly dysfunctional” at a meeting of the Oireachtas health committee.
Labour TD Róisín Shortall told the committee people were waiting months for their applications to be processed since the service was centralised in Finglas, Dublin, and there have been instances of applications, which were lodged, getting lost not once or twice but three times.
Mistakes were being made on eligibility and there was a complete lack of consideration given to medical evidence submitted, she asserted.
Furthermore it was impossible, she said, to get in touch with people in the central office by telephone. “It’s an absolute and utter disaster, in my view,” said Ms Shortall.
She told Minister for Health Mary Harney and HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm, who were before the committee, that an 85-year-old man went by taxi to the central office with all his documentation, only for it then to get lost.
“On one occasion recently gardaí had to be called because people became so irate with the bureaucracy,” she added.
Fianna Fáil Mayo TD Beverley Flynn said a special telephone number in the central office had been given to Oireachtas members to make queries about constituents’ medical cards. But when she failed to get an answer on that phone several times she “in desperation” contacted Ms Harney’s office. Somebody from the central office rang her back during lunchtime. She missed the call and had been unable to make contact since.
The HSE plans to centralise the processing of medical card applications for all age groups into the same office by April. It has already done so for parts of Dublin.
Ms Harney said she accepted there were issues and had raised them recently with Prof Drumm.
Prof Drumm accepted there was a problem but said he expects that when applications for all medical cards are centralised in April, a further 140 staff will be available to deal with the backlog, barring industrial relations issues.
Laverne McGuinness, a national director with the HSE, stressed 90 per cent of applications for medical cards for over-70s were being dealt with within one month. She added that there was a huge volume of calls to the central office, but some staff who had been manning phones had been diverted to deal with the backlog of applications.
She insisted TDs and others who wished to find out information on medical card applications could still get this from their local health office. While some TDs disputed this Ms McGuinness stressed the information was available locally but that “some misinformation” had been given out as a result of people not co-operating with the new system.
Prof Drumm confirmed 1,100 acute hospital beds will be closed this year as fewer patients will be admitted for diagnostic procedures. He admitted outpatient waiting times were a problem with internal HSE data showing longest waiting times for outpatient appointments were in the areas of orthopaedics, ENT, dermatology and rheumatology.
The Cavan Monaghan Fianna Fáil TD Margaret Conlon said she had been contacted by a mother whose child had to wait a year for an outpatient appointment and was then told she would have to wait several months more for surgery. Prof Drumm said this should not happen but he accepted progress had to be made on outpatient waiting times.
Ms Harney confirmed the contract for the supply of the cervical cancer vaccine which will be given to first-year students in second-level schools this year had gone to Sanofi Pasteur. Its vaccine, Gardasil, offers protection not just against the HPV virus but also against genital warts.
She also said regulations would be ready at the end of this month in relation to the banning of ingredients found in some products sold in headshops. The regulations must then be notified to the EU and it is expected they will come into force three months later.