Flu vaccine costs and medical cards
Higgins asked that at-risk people without medical cards be able to receive flu vaccination without cost and raised the Government’s promised medical cards. The Taoiseach said the vaccine is free, but administration fees are between patients and GPs; the Chair kept the discussion to Higgins’s question.
The Taoiseach did not respond to my key questions. I did not speak about a shortage in general of the vaccine but of the ability of a certain cohort of elderly people at risk to afford it and have it administered without causing further economic difficulty – those who do not qualify for a medical card.
Does the Taoiseach agree that the vaccine should be available from general funding to all people in those categories? Does he agree that the 200,000 people who were supposed to benefit from medical cards but who were cheated of them in a subsequent U-turn by the Government should qualify? Is he saying that the only remedy promised for the entire winter is the moving of 200 people out of beds they are currently occupying to enable those on trolleys to be moved to those beds? What about the 3,000 beds that are necessary in the system? Far more than 200 beds are necessary as an emergency measure.
The number of patients on trolleys in Blanchardstown hospital yesterday was 25, yet a state-of-the-art accident and emergency department lies unopened in that hospital and members of the nursing profession there are strongly suspicious that the last tranche of funding to enable it to open is being withheld until a time closer to the European and local elections. Does the Taoiseach agree that would be the most contemptuous cynicism in the treatment of our medical system and those who are desperately dependent on it? Will he address clearly the two or three questions I have put and not give me a second lecture on the strains of the influenza virus? We will leave that to others for the moment. I am concerned about to whom it is available.
Comment on this
The Deputy's first question was about the ‘at risk' group – a patient who falls into the ‘at risk' group who is not a medical card holder. There is no charge for the vaccine.
Comment on this
It is provided free of charge to general practitioners from health boards' supplies. However, the fee for administering the vaccine in such cases is a matter between the general practitioner and the patient. That seems to be a fair and reasonable position.
On the beds initiative in regard to Blanchardstown hospital and the other hospitals mentioned—
