A 10-year-old girl, who has had three strokes and is unable to walk or talk, had her medical card withdrawn in January, reports Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent.
The father of Jennifer Byrne, Mr Dominic Byrne, yesterday criticised the Northern Area Health Board and the former eastern health board for this and a litany of other difficulties he has encountered in trying to get free aids and appliances for his daughter.
When Jennifer, from Ballyboughal, north Dublin, was a toddler, the Central Remedial Clinic (CRC) prescribed a walker for her, but when Mr Byrne applied for it under the medical card, he was told he would have to contribute £200 towards the cost.
After months of pointing out to the health board that Jennifer had been granted her medical card on medical rather than income grounds, the board accepted that the child should get the walking aid free. In the meantime, the CRC changed the child's prescription and told the health board the child required a different walker. The health board insisted for some time that it was only prepared to supply the type initially requested - even though it had been told this type would now be unsafe for the child.
Mr Byrne said it then took a year to get a safety helmet from the health board for Jennifer, who was falling down with an average of 12 epileptic seizures a day. "By the time she got it it was too small for her," he said.
Jennifer, who attends a special school, was born with a minor heart murmur and a vascular ring around her oesophagus.
It was planned to operate on her when she got a little older, but at six months she suffered a stroke. A year later, she had two other strokes in quick succession, leaving her severely disabled.
The difficulties in relation to Jennifer's medical card were raised recently in the Dáil by the Independent TD, Mr Finian McGrath. The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, referred the matter to the health board. In a reply within the last few days, the board has told Mr McGrath that it decided "as an exceptional measure" to renew the child's card for a year. It explained that the child's family had been sent a renewal notice when the card was to expire, but they hadn't returned it - so the card was automatically withdrawn.
Mr Byrne said he accepted the form hadn't been returned, but he was sick and tired of having to supply details of his income to the health board every six to 12 months, even though his child was entitled to a card on medical grounds.
Furthermore, he said, he often only received medical card renewal forms well after the date on which they were supposed to have been returned.
In addition, there was only one standard renewal form and he was having to sign a legal declaration saying the card was for "myself and my dependants" which it wasn't; it was Jennifer alone and he had concerns about signing it.
Mr Byrne said he and his wife, Elizabeth, had enough to do looking after Jennifer 24 hours a day without having to engage in all sorts of bureaucracy. "I feel all this is to make us go off and say it's not worth the hassle and pay for everything ourselves.
"Charlie Haughey has an automatic entitlement to a medical card because he is over 70 and we have a Government that talks about social inclusion and a caring society - yet people like Jennifer are not entitled to a medical card automatically. They have to fight for it."
The health board, in a statement, said it couldn't comment on individual cases but would try to support any family with a child with serious medical problems.
"The board regrets if existing control measures in relation to the issuing of medical cards have been a cause of inconvenience for a particular family and is anxious that any inconvenience would be kept to a minimum and that these issues be dealt with as sensitively as possible and a resolution found," it said.