asked the Minister for Health whether insured workers and their families are entitled to free doctors, and/or specialist treatment, if they occupy a public ward in a hospital; whether he is aware that doctors have charged and are charging such workers and their dependents in certain instances; and what action he proposes to take in the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Treatment of Insured Workers.
The capitation charge payable by health authorities to hospitals for the maintenance and treatment in public wards of persons insured under the Social Welfare Acts and for the dependents of such persons, whether it is the full normal capitation charge in respect of patients sent in (or deemed to have been sent in) by the health authority or the full capitation charge reduced by 10/- a day in respect of Section 25 cases, covers all services provided in the hospitals by the medical staffs of the hospitals and they are not entitled to charge fees to such patients for their services.
I am not aware that in general the medical staffs of hospitals have charged and are charging fees in such cases, but if the Deputy will furnish me with particulars of specific cases in which it is contended that fees have been charged irregularly, I shall have them investigated. In the meantime I shall consider what further steps I can usefully take with a view to making eligible persons aware of the facilities and services to which they are entitled under the Health Acts.
Is the Minister aware that insured workers are not fully cognisant of the rights they enjoy under the Health Act and that there should be more publicity than there has already been? Is he further aware that this charging by the medical profession to insured workers is rampant throughout the whole country? Is he further aware that only last night the Limerick City Manager reported to the Limerick City Council that in a case referred back to him by the Minister for Health for his attention the doctor who had charged fees, and fairly substantial fees, to an insured worker refused to refund those fees? That is enough to go on with.
I think the series of supplementary questions which the Deputy has put is more than I can digest in the second or two in which he has presented them to me. So far as the third part of the question is concerned, I am not aware of the position as he has stated it, because I could not, having regard to the limitations upon the transmission of knowledge, have any information in relation to it. But, in regard to the first and second parts of the supplementary question, I think there may be some misunderstanding as to the rights of insured persons under the Health Act, so that it may be that some people are taking advantage of the fact that this knowledge is not as widespread as it ought to be. On the other hand, it is very difficult to see what more we can do to publicise the fact that insured persons who occupy beds in public wards are not to be charged anything over and above what is paid on their behalf by the local authority.
Is the Minister aware that I have three cases here which I can refer to him in which insured workers in public wards were charged, respectively, 25 guineas, £41 and 35 guineas, and that the doctors absolutely refused to refund the fees? Further, would the Minister state——
The Deputy cannot get even the attention of his own Ministers.
——if he is aware that, because of the lack of knowledge of their rights on the part of insured workers, certain doctors are encouraging insured workers to go to a semiprivate or private ward so that those doctors can legally charge——
The Deputy has enlarged the question beyond the original issue.
I regret to say that, on account of the conversation on the other side of the House, I did not hear what the Deputy was saying.
I shall go on to the next question.
No, Sir. I suppose it will be reported and that I shall have an opportunity of seeing what I was not permitted to hear by the disorderly conversation on the other side.
How could the Minister hear when he was in conference with the Minister for Finance?
All about elections.
All about some subject.