asked the Minister for Health whether a dispensary doctor is entitled to refuse to attend a patient, who is insured or who holds a medical card, if the request for attendance is sent by telephone.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Dispensary Doctors' Services.
An insured person as such is not entitled to receive general medical services from the district medical officer but he may qualify for these services as a person unable to provide them for himself or his dependents, by his own industry or other lawful means.
A district medical officer is obliged to afford medical care and advice to any person resident in his district whose name is entered in the general medical services register and to the dependents of such person whether his services are requested by telephone or otherwise. In this matter of summoning the district medical officer, it is, of course, expected that eligible persons will behave reasonably by summoning him only when his services are really necessary and, when the circumstances of the illness or of distance permit, will on the first occasion on which they require his services after their admission to the register present their medical cards to the doctor as proof of their eligibility.