I wish to highlight one of the most callous and cold actions that I have ever experienced in my 12 years as a public representative, that is the use of debt collection agencies by the Southern Health Board to intimidate, frighten and harass medical card holders, many of whom are in their sixties and some receiving psychiatric treatment on an ongoing basis.
The Southern Health Board are employing a firm called Dun and Bradstreet International, who are the publishers of Stubbs Gazette to collect money from the elderly, and I have a copy of one of their demands with me here. Intimidation is being used because the letter threatens court action if the money is not paid within 14 days. The recipients, some of whom are medical card holders, people in their sixties who have had psychiatric treatment, are being intimidated by the highlighting of the Stubbs Gazette letterhead on the letter which is threatening legal action and is signed by a lady called Charlotte Keely, account manager of Stubbs Receivable Management Services Division.
One of the cases brought to my attention was the case of a man in his sixties who got a demand for £228 for psychiatric treatment received by his wife at St. Stephen's Hospital, Cork, on a number of occasions over the past two years. The demand letter signed by the accounts manager of Stubbs warns of legal action within 14 days if payment is not made during that time. I submit there is no conceivable way by which these people can pay that money in that time. They are being frightened literally out of their wits by the mention of Stubbs Gazette. The money is being demanded because the patient, who is a medical card holder, spent more than 30 days in hospital in recent years.
As a member of the Southern Health Board I am deeply aware of the serious financial situation in which the board find themselves. They have a shortfall of £4.5 million this year alone together with a deficit from last year of £1.5 million and they are in dire financial straits. To descend so low as to intimidate the most vulnerable in our society is a despicable method of collecting money. I believe that on two counts it is immoral to send letters like this to elderly people. First the fear element: it frightens old people who are the most vulnerable in our society and whom we are supposed to be taking care of, certainly we give the most lip service to their care. Second, I would question the justification of using these methods to intimidate medical card holders when the health board are owed a lot of money by more powerful groups in society. I believe the health board are descending to very low standards by using this method to collect money from the most vulnerable in our society, and I ask the Minister of State this evening to assure the Dáil that he will stop this despicable practice. Will he confirm to this House also that medical card holders who have full eligibility for hospital services are not obliged to pay these charges, and that he will make his views known, in no uncertain terms, to the Southern Health Board to ensure that medical card holders are exempt from these charges, especially elderly medical card holders who are suffering because they are psychiatric patients?
I am asking the Minister to stop the intimidation of medical card holders, the elderly and psychiatric patients and I submit that the case to which I referred this evening is not just an isolated case. It is happening — and I can only speak for the Southern Health Board — because the health boards are using Dun and Bradstreet and another company, Hughes and MacEvilly to issue legal notices for some of the other hospitals under their jurisdiction.
In conclusion, under the Health Act, 1970, and certainly under the Mental Treatment Act, 1945, the people I have described are entitled to treatment without this type of intimidation.
