Sir, – In an interview shortly after being appointed as Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar said an awful lot of money had been taken out of general practice. Yesterday, after the GP protest, he stated that fees had gone up for GPs since this Government came to power. Both of these statements cannot be true at the same time.
The fact is that in 2002 the government paid €282 million for 1,168,745 medical card holders. It now pays €469 million for 1,853,877 medical card holders; and if it adds children under six, it will pay €503 million for 2,253,000 medical cards.
If it had maintained the payments in line with inflation since 2002, the Primary Care Reimbursement Service would now need to pay €700 million per year, an effective cut in resources of €200 million.
I would believe Dr Varadkar if he said that the Government could not afford to do this, which he was invited to do at the rally.
It does him no credit in the face of the crisis actually happening right now to the provision of medical services in Ireland to resort to this type of spin. It would be even worse if he actually believed what he was saying were true. – Yours, etc,
Dr MICHAEL
McCONVILLE,
Ballyhaise,
Cavan.