asked the Minister for Health if he will indicate the names of the health authorities which make free hearing-aids, dentures and spectacles available to eligible categories under the Health Acts.
Written Answer. - Free Appliances under Health Act.
Hearing-aids are not being made available generally by health authorities pending the organisation of a scheme for the economic supply of these appliances. Owing to current financial and other difficulties the introduction of such a scheme must be deferred for the time being. Such hearing-aids as are now being supplied under the Health Acts are mainly for the use of children maintained in recognised institutions for the deaf, the cost of the aids being met by the health authorities of the particular areas where the children concerned normally reside.
Dentures are provided by the following local authorities for the lower income group:—
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County Councils |
Other local authorities |
|
|
Cork |
Meath |
Dublin Board of Assistance |
|
Donegal |
Monaghan |
Balrothery Board of Assistance |
|
Galway |
Roscommon |
Rathdown ,,,,,, |
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Kildare |
Sligo |
South Cork Board of Public Assistance |
|
Kilkenny |
Tipperary N.R. |
Waterford ,,,,,, |
|
Laois |
Tipperary S.R. |
|
|
Leitrim |
Westmeath |
|
|
Longford |
Health authorities have been asked to concentrate their available resources on the development of dental services for children in preference to services for adults. Having regard to this consideration and the present urgent need for economy, some health authorities are not providing any dentures, while some, included in the list above, are providing them only on a restricted scale, for the lower income group. Most health authorities provide dentures for school children in the occasional cases in which they are found, at school health examinations, to be necessary.
Spectacles are provided by all health authorities for national school children for visual defects discovered at school health examination. The majority of health authorities also provide spectacles, as required, for children attending child welfare clinics, where such clinics are operated. Spectacles are provided for the lower income group in all areas by the responsible local authority (i.e., health authority, board of assistance or board of public assistance, as the case may be), but in County Limerick, in the current year, the council, as an economy measure, has suspended the supply of spectacles to this group.