asked the Minister for Health whether it is the intention underlying the Health Act that a family consisting of husband, wife and two school-going children should be refused a medical card where the income of the family amounts to £6 19s. 0d. per week.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Eligibility for Medical Cards.
4.
Section 14 of the Health Act, 1953, provides that a health authority shall make available, without charge, general medical services for persons who by their own industry or other lawful means are unable to provide such services for themselves, and for the dependants of such persons.
The duty of determining whether a person is able to provide general medical services for himself and for his dependants rests solely upon the health authority and in arriving at such determination, the health authority must have regard to the specific circumstances of the particular case. I, as Minister for Health, have no power which would allow me to direct health authorities to grant a medical card to any particular person.
If the question put by the Deputy is not a purely hypothetical one but relates to an actual case I shall be glad if he gives me the necessary particulars to ask for the observations of the health authority concerned with regard to it. In the meantime I have no authority to fix any general standards to govern the issue of medical cards but can only express my earnest desire that Section 14 will be administered by health authorities in a reasonable manner.
I take it that the Minister is aware that the purpose of the Health Act was, as it was then said, to improve the standard of health services operative in this country; and that a person in 1938 who had an income of 50/- a week would have been entitled to the services of a dispensary medical doctor if he had a wife and two children dependent on him? Six pounds nineteen shillings is now the equivalent of about £2 10s. in 1938, yet a Kildare county manager refuses to grant a medical card to a person in 1959 because he has £6 19s. a week. Will the Minister call the attention, at least of the county manager in Kildare, if not county managers elsewhere, to the necessity for interpreting that Act in the manner in which it was believed it would be interpreted when it was passed through this House? At present the Health Act is a disimprovement on the health services operative before 1938.
After that prolonged oration I have nothing to add to the very long answer I have given to the Deputy.
Except that the Health Act is being disregarded as far as this House in concerned. The position is worse now than it was pre-war.