Cancer patients medical cards
Deputy Moynihan called for automatic emergency medical cards for cancer patients. The Taoiseach said children already had an automatic card, adults were means tested, and decisions were based on broader principles rather than diagnosis alone.
The programme for Government gives a commitment that medical cards will be given to cancer patients. This is not happening. I am aware of two people who have been given serious cancer diagnoses who have applied for medical cards and are going through the rigours of the system to get them. It is difficult enough for a person who has received the serious diagnosis of cancer to cope with that without having to go through all the necessary paper work to get a medical card. I am not saying they should not be tested but there ought to be an emergency medical card given for the initial two or three months, at least, to allow them to start treatment. Earlier this week, a man who was beginning chemotherapy came to me. He had to pay out €600 for drugs, and he simply did not have the money. He was starting chemotherapy yesterday, on Tuesday. It is vitally important that a direction is given that when a letter goes in for a medical card from a GP or consultant in relation to a cancer diagnosis that it is given the urgency it requires, which gives space to the families to gather the necessary paper work, the P45s, P21s or P60s or whatever is required. In God's name, give the people that have received the diagnosis a medical card for a short period.
Comment on this
There is an automatic medical card for children with cancer; I do not think that it applies to adults.
Comment on this
Adults are means tested in the first instance and after that, they can be given on discretionary grounds, for terminal illness or, I believe, on emergency grounds in certain circumstances. Professor Frank Keane undertook a detailed review on this matter and determined that it would be unfair to select some diagnoses and not others, that there could not be an automatic right to a medical card for cancer, for instance, but not for multiple sclerosis, that it would have to be done on other factors rather than diagnosis.
On the cost of medicines, the maximum any household has to pay is €140 monthly and this will be reduced to €130 from January. We will continue to reduce this amount.