asked the Minister for Health if he will consider making medical cards available to kidney patients without a means test.
Written Answers. - Eligibility for Medical Cards.
38.
Medical cards are only issued to persons who, in the opinion of the chief executive officer of a health board, satisfy the criterion of hardship in that they cannot provide general practitioner medical services for themselves and their dependants, from their own resources, without incurring an undue degree of hardship. Where an individual or a family is subjected to a significant level of ongoing expenditure on medical expenses due to a persistent medical condition, these expenses are reckoned in determining eligibility for medical card cover. In the case of a family, a medical card can be issued to one member of the family only, where appropriate.
At present some 50 per cent of kidney patients are covered by medical cards and, therefore, receive their prescribed drugs, as well as general practitioner services, entirely free of charge. The remaining 50 per cent of kidney patients comprise persons who have access to the refund of costs of drugs scheme. That scheme ensures that net unrefunded expenditure on prescribed drugs does not exceed £28 per calendar month. There is no income limit in this scheme.