Health cuts are "unsustainable" claims Ó Caoláin

Challenging Health Minister James Reilly at the Dáil Health Committee earlier this week a Cavan-Monaghan Deputy claimed the cuts are not sustainable and are undermining the public health services. 

Sinn Féin Health spokesperson Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said that the background to the Revised Estimates being considered by the Committee are reductions in health spending year on year - €781 million in Budget 2013, over €750 million cut in Budget 2012 plus an additional €130 million in August of that year, €1 billion cut in 2011. He told the Committee:
“We said from the beginning such cuts were unsustainable and would cause huge damage to the health services. That has proved to be correct. In the very week of the announcement of Budget 2013 Minister Reilly had to ask the Dáil for an additional €360 million supplementary estimate to prevent services collapsing before the end of 2012.
“I note that in a report to the Public Accounts Committee the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has blamed Minister Reilly for the December 2012 supplementary health estimate, the over-run of €360 million.
“Among the savings – as distinct from cuts to services – NOT delivered were the promised reductions in the cost of drugs. Who was made to pick up the tab there? The answer is medical card holders whose prescription fees were increased three-fold. Both Minister Howlin’s party, Labour and Minister Reilly’s party, Fine Gael, vehemently opposed the prescription charges for medical card holders imposed by Mary Harney – but they have trebled the charges to €1.50 per item and increased the monthly maximum payment from €10 per month to €19.50 per month.
“Minister Reilly failed to deliver the promised reductions in the exorbitant price of medicines in this State and instead is passing the cost on to patients with higher prescription charges and the increase of the threshold for the Drugs Payment Scheme from €132 to €144 per month.
“This latter cut is yet another attack on those families and individuals on the margins of poverty. These are people whose incomes are just above the threshold for qualification for the medical card. They must bear the full cost of GP visits and of medication – now up to €144 per month. They were hit with the full range of cuts in Budget 2013 – especially the PRSI increases and the Child Benefit reductions.

Medical Card
“The health needs of older people in particular were attacked in the Budget. People over 70 with an income of between €600 and €700 per week have lost their medical card and will instead receive the GP-only card.
“All Deputies can testify to the fact that medical cards are being taken away from people with real and serious medical needs because of the tighter and harsher application of the income threshold. Little discretion and little compassion is being exercised.
“Only this week my office was contacted by a man with a disability since childhood and with a serious bowel condition and consequent very high medical expenses. He had long had a medical card which has now been taken away on income grounds. His appeal has been turned down. Such experiences are legion. They are not reflected in the dry figures in these estimates but they are the reality on the ground.
“Government policy claims that primary care and community care are the bedrock of the health services. These revised estimates see a reduction of 8.6% in this area between 2012 and 2013. A Government that is pledged to extend free GP care to all and to expand primary care is actually going in the opposite direction.

Home help hours
“Last year’s bout of austerity saw the cutting of 950,000 home help hours in 2012. Junior Minister Kathleen Lynch made a claim that there was a commitment to ‘restore’ these services in 2013. But spending has been reduced. The bottom line is – will those older people and disabled people who had home help hours cut in 2012 have those same hours restored during the remainder of this year as previously indicated by the junior Minister?
“Age Action Ireland at the pre-Budget forum in Dublin Castle last Friday outlined the reality of cuts for older people. They said the feedback they received during their national consultation process in March was shocking, with older people telling how they were going to bed in the early evening to stay warm, using hot water bottles to stay warm rather than turning on their heating, or seriously considering the option of getting rid of pets because they could no longer afford to feed them.
“I support Age Action in their call on Government to increase the funding for vital community services, home helps, home care packages, day care and meals on wheels which are intrinsic to supporting people to manage at home; to cease the counter-productive policy of reducing medical card eligibility for the over 70s medical card; and to consider options to increase funding for the Nursing Home Support Scheme.”