Cross-border healthcare costs
Deputy Tully asked whether cross-border healthcare arrangements could be revised after a woman was left facing a large funding shortfall for treatment in Derry. The Taoiseach said the old directive had become redundant after Brexit and that a North-South funding arrangement now applied, while he would check the cost details.
Does the Government have plans to revise the cross-border directive or the planned healthcare scheme when it is applied to the North? Recently a woman contacted me who requires two knee replacements. She has been advised that she will have to wait for at least two years in the public system here for an operation. When she inquired about having the operation in Derry, she was told she would be approved by the HSE for just over €11,000 for the operation, but it costs in excess of £12,000, which equates to more than €14,800. That is a difference of €3,800 per operation and more than €7,600 in total. It is beyond her capacity and that of most ordinary people to pay that amount.
We would much rather see the public system here being able to accommodate all patients, but that will not happen any time soon. Instead of having people waiting in agony for years, is there a possibility the prices here can be reviewed to bring them into line with what is being charged in the North or vice versa?
Comment on this
The directive became redundant because the UK left the European Union and the Government, through the Minister of Health, then initiated a process whereby we would fund and support operations through a North-South arrangement in lieu of the directive. I will check the specifics of the cost and so on, but my understanding was there was a relationship between the HSE and the hospitals concerned in the North. I will check that out.