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THE DIRECTOR GENERAL of the HSE is insisting parents of children with life-long conditions or illnesses were not asked to prove whether they had that condition.
It follows the long-running controversy surrounding the review of discretionary medical cards, which was halted entirely by the Government last week.
It was announced yesterday that an expert panel is being appointed to examine how medical need should be taken into account when the cards are being granted.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland today, Tony O’Brien said there had been individual incidents “where we have already acknowledged we got it wrong” and that the HSE had already apologised to the people in question.
“But I also have to say there are many incidents put into the public domain recently that are not true characterisations of the facts,” O’Brien said
I think that’s a feature of the general climate of fear that has existed.
Asked whether he was referring to cases where it was reported parents had been asked to prove whether children still had a particular condition, O’Brien said:
I am saying questions were asked that were not those questions, but which may have been interpreted as that.
“We are obliged, for example, to ensure that we take full account of any costs that a family may have that arise from a change in their circumstances — perhaps an exacerbation of an illness or a secondary illness.
“When we ask has there been any change in circumstances, that’s what we’re asking. We’re not asking does the person still have the particular life-long condition that they’ve had.”
O’Brien said he accepted misunderstandings had taken place and that people would be given an opportunity “to review the tapes of those recordings to satisfy themselves”.
“We certainly would never wish to cause that kind of concern,” O’Brien said.
Review
On the subject of the options facing people who had already lost their medical card, O’Brien said it would be difficult for the HSE to reissue them “because individuals who have already lost their medical cards had been assessed and found not to qualify”.
However he added:
Minister Reilly and Minister White are working on arrangements that will enable us or authorise us to reissue those medical cards and government has committed to examining that very quickly.
He said the process was expected to be completed in “a matter of weeks”.
The HSE announced yesterday that an expert panel of 23 medical professionals will examine which medical conditions should automatically qualify a person for a medical card. A public consultation process also gets under way today.
O’Brien said the panel was facing into “a challenging task”.
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We were asked last year to provide a letter from our GP as to what time frame in his opinion would my sons condition last ,my son has Down Syndrome. So I send in Medical card renewal form saying my son has DS and that’s the reply I get. It’s does not take a genius to realise that conditions like DS are life long. So that man is talking out of his hole.
Post a picture of this request!
Why? Do you seriously assume this is something a parent would mess with??
There is nothing wrong with asking an egg to provide evidence of its claims, I’m sure there will be a scan posted any time now.
Because we were meant to believe that someone from the hse asked if the child still had DS. Now we are being told that what they had been asked was if their circumstances had changed. Two very different questions.
So yes, show us this disgraceful request letter if it exists. Show us exactly how it is worded not how an emotive parent reads it and portrays it to others.
This is not a slight on any parent just a matter of course to get to the truth.
I have been personally asked to provide a letter from my gp stating that my child would still be autistic beyond the age of 18. So that’s bullshit right there
Autism is such a wide spectrum in fairness. There plenty of children that are classed as autistic that have mild variation of the conditions while other can’t speak. More than likely it was a generic form to confirm the current condition of the child. There’s plenty of parents claiming Carers, DCA etc for there children and such claims need to be validated as mild cases of autism wouldn’t meet the threshold for such generous payments.
Indeed but my point is Autism is not curable nor does it go away. You learn to manage it and help the child as best as possible, but to ask would he still have it at 18 is fcuking ridiculous.
They have put a load of entry level civil servants with zero medical backing in charge of this stuff, its stupid
Autism doesn’t go away, but a five year old that can’t speak can see some improvement by there 18. The reviews for Carers etc don’t get reviewed as regularly as for medical cards and when they do they need more then there parents word hence GP forms, a parent getting an extra 10-15k extra a year certainty won’t say their child’s condition has improved for obvious reasons.
10 to 15k Joe? Reference that please. Carers allowance is around €40 a week above Jobseekers. I make that around €2k. Add in €1300 respite care grant (which is needed for the purpose of giving a parent a break from the 24/7 work they do) and it is still a long way short of your guess.
Also to clarify the only thing we have claimed is dca, which we were deemed entitled to. I hand that to my mother who minds my son for us while my wife and I work full time.
That’s 300 euro a month, so don’t have a clue how someone could be getting 10-15k
Carers allowance is around 10k, DCA 4k and respite 1300 add another 1k for household benefits package,free travel, TV license, medical card etc you could conservatively top the 15k. And there is also half rate carers for those on other payments(lone parents, Job seekers as Qualified Adults,pensions etc) which would see you tipping over 20k in tax free benefits and very generous income thresholds for those with other incomes. To be honest I don’t think requiring a GP to fill out a form every 5/6 years for all those benefits is to onerous regardless of how the questions are phased.
5/6 years? Try 5/6 months! I’m my wifes carer. She had her thyroid removed last year due to cancer and is still suffering from quite a few illnesses as a result. Since May last year, I’ve been reviewed three times. During each review, my payment was stopped, leaving me trying to feed and clothe a family on SWA.
From January – September 2013 I cared for my mother who had bone marrow cancer . 204 euros a week on carers allowance . I am now on the job seekers allowance at 188 euro . Not a huge difference
You are sick.
As in, you are sick – Joe Simpson
I wonder how many people posting comments here and getting outraged actually heard the interview on Morning Ireland?
Never let facts get in the way of a good rant.
Reg. I’m guessing none! I wonder if all the media, press and broadcast, will now correct the facts. We really need some responsible reporting in this country and front page correction when misinformation is found out.
Funny that. Why was I asked to give umpteen letters from my doctors proving my case that yes a) I have a life limiting condition and b) it isn’t going to go away anytime soon.
I was also asked to give a copy of our house insurance, and a copy of the logbook of the car, as well as the rest of the documents asked.
Nice work HSE..
The sooner they start a HSE cull the better, there are too many mangers and red tape generators that are preventing accountability.
Hard to have faith in an organisation like the HSE when they ask the mother of a down syndrome child if he still has Down syndrome!
“Has there been a change in circumstances” which obviously referred to monetary circumstances completely misinterpreted.
Another liar at the top
In fairness to the HSE the question was very simple but people got on their high horse and claimed they were being mis-treated by the big bad wolf.
If the HSE have dished out medical cards paid for by taxpayers we as taxpayers should be insisting they carry out an audit of this nature to ensure the discretionary card system isn’t being abused
“we as taxpayers should be insisting they carry out an audit”
Ha ha we as tax payers don’t insist upon anything, we as tax payers are told to put up and shut up. I really don’t know what magical land you live in Colm but it’s definitely not Ireland.
I wouldn’t trust them to carry out an audit on themselves. It would have to be an independent auditor’s. I don’t know if they all ready do that or not. I can only say from my own personal experience that I’ve found 90% of contact with the HSE to be a frustrating exercise in being placed on hold. Depts with odd opening and closing times, and staff not being trained in rules and regulations, clients charters. Rude staff and dilapidated premises.
More media nonsense reporting – a misunderstood comment becomes a fact. All this without ever giving context for the need for medical card probity.
Anyway, onwards and upwards from here – lets turn 1.9 million medical cards into 3 million !
Fact checking is not a valued attribute of online media.
Conjecture, heresay and rumour are what get the advertising clicks.
The crowd don’t really want the truth, they just want noise.
Not just online media – Jonathan Healy had a good half hour segment dedicated to this inaccurate story on his usual whigefest.
Of course this misinterpretation suited alot of biased commentators’ agendas.
Ah so it was just the way it asked then! Well that clears up that then…..it’s our fault for taking them up wrong…sorted so..
Clearly this man believes everyone is thick!
Well O’Brien somebody did? Shame on you!
No, they weren’t asked but the HSE should have ensured the wording couldn’t be interpreted as so
I could well believe this did happen. I’ve lived with Multiple Sclerosis 16 years.
I don’t have a medical card, but I have a ‘long-term illness book’ that means I get MS-only meds for free.
Every few years the HSE recalls it to review it.
No cure for MS, only my GP can prescribe medication on it, yet all that time spent on reviewing it.
They usually decide I can’t get ‘x’ any more, because it’s not the most commonly prescribed med for that problem.
Then I have to get my GP, neurologist and chemist to write letters explaining why ‘x’ is needed, having tried the most commonly prescribed med already, with no success.
Such a ridiculous waste of public money and time. Stressful too.
This is what public heath service time and money is squandered on. Some administration person deciding they know more about what’s appropriate to prescribe me than my GP and neurologist.
It all makes useless work for the useless members of IMPACT clerical work section, whose useless jobs have to be protected under the Haddington Road agreement – in case they might motivate their useless carcases to strike…..and present a problem for government – because as soon as the useless clerical workers are seen for what they are, then the spotlight will turn on the 2500 useless middle managers in the HSE who were all politically appointed and who are middle class mortgage payers and therefore very important people and who obviously cannot be sacked or laid off..
James Reilly start getting your affairs in order.
Get your letter of resignation typed up.
The amount of sh*t that has happened in the HSE under your watch is staggering…
Go quietly and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out…
“I am saying questions were asked that were not those questions, but which may have been interpreted as that.” What an oily little snake!
Snorre
He’s telling us that the person who misinterpreted the question is basically thick! Surely we don’t have people like that in this country ?
We do …they rule us very very badly
They’re backtracking now they’ve been found out.
Ian. Go and listen to the interview and then come back and comment.
+ insult 2 injury
Ya see
The stupid public got it all wrong
There was no problem, we was doing a great job
What we meant by a change in circumstance was not what they thought we meant by a change in circumstance
The public are not as smart as us
That is the biggest problem that we have
pants on fire, O’Brien?
Listened to O’Brien guy on RTE radio and I find he talks too fast. Couldn’t keep up with him. Full of little sound bites and phrases appears to be trying to talk his way out of a hole.
He’s a fukking liar!
This fool needs to resign immediately.
Richard
You are clearly putting yourself in the same bracket as those that the story covers. In case you don’t understand I can confirm that you won’t get any better in your lifetime!
You can always get better, better at making a total fukkup of everything and treating the Irish people like sh* t
Its taken O Brien until now to appear and this is the best excuse he can come up with for his dept ineptitude……..bus for o brien another highly paid waste of space
The reality is the ruling classes view us plebs as monons and cannon fodder. The Native Americans use to say, if we can believe the movies, “white man speak with forked tongue” Any thing the Fg/FF/Lab right wing junta come up with for the ordinary guy is laced with lies, half truth and mis-direction. The HSE are merely a tenticle of this anti-person regime.
At the very best interpretation of this farce, one would have to say that what was done was unprofessional and callous. Yet I suspect this person earns what any of us must consider a very professional salary package. We are told that we have to pay these sums if we want highly skilled professionals in such positions. Looks like money wasted to me.
Having heard the interview this morning it is my belief that the parents have this one wrong. It is a simple question “Has your circumstances changed?”
In an environment of cuts and austerity parents heard this and immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion.
As he said, the tapes are available for review.
But who will review them? I’m sure it will be just the parents allowed to listen to their own conversation and again they will hear what they want to hear.
If some of the tapes are released into the public domain then we will once and for all know who is wrong.
Mr. O Brien will be shown up as a complete liar.
Or the parents will have their misunderstanding shown up.
if mr o brien maintains that people misinterpreted questions then surely the wording of said questions should be changed rather than to present an open to interpretation question….he al;so knows that under data protection nobody can request to listen to phone conversations and the calls he is refering to are those for training purposes only..so is he now saying that calls logged for training purposes are in fact for any type of use or is the caller been informed that the hse interpretation of recording for training purpose and callers interpretation is up for interpretation…….sounds to me if o briens legal dept gave him at get out of jail card by forcing the blame onto the families interpretation of his dept questionaire…..
Regardless of how the questions were put to applicants, it doesn’t excuse cards withdrawn from persons with lifelong conditions who had held Discretionary cards for years prior to ” probity” culling . These people spend months gathering ” evidence” from GPS hospitals, and a range of services. In spite of this cards were based on income ONLY. It’s disengenuous to make this about who said what, cards are still withdrawn from those in need , with HSE in some cases making phone calls to people giving cards back for a few months until they are ” assessed”. Enough already , it’s disgraceful , change the system to ensure those in need can access cards& treatment NOW
Surely the calls are recorded? Oh, wait, whats that? you mislaid the recordings.. how convenient
The calls are recorded Joe and will support O Brien’s assertions.
It states in the article above that the tapes are available for review (did you not read it Joe?), but don’t let actual facts or reality influence the rubbish that you spew.
Just like the garda whistle blowers. Joe needs to step down now.
The only answer is a proper needs based system as in the UK, Canada, Taiwan and Turkey. Everyone pays a basic monthly amount -deducted from welfare if necessary. Medical treatment is free and geared to provide the most to families that need it the most. That way all the money spent on useless pettyfogging bureaucrats to administer eligibility for benefits programmes is saved and is actually spent on medical care for people in need.
Of course the Labour Party would object to this as all sots of small minded bureaucrats would be left without the power of life and death over people who earn 5 or 10 euros over whatever insane income threshold is applied to highly stressed families in real need – and they would have to suffer redundancy – which would affect the IMPACT contribution to the Labour Party.
Also the Fine Gael politicians bribed by big pharma would object because a national drug purchasing company – perhaps linked to the British NHS – would actually be able to bargain fair prices for drugs from the formerly fine gael /fine fail supported drug company robber barons.
Come to think of it the above arguments set out the reasons why a sensible health policy will not be allowed in this country – as in, there would be no percentage for our bent politicians.
With all these investigative panels that have to be set up to examine what amounts to total ineptitude by those tasked with saving the state money. It might be cheaper to just give everybody a free medical card. I doubt very much that the costs would be higher. It appears there is a problem with criteria required when giving these idiot’s departmental jobs. It seems to me that apart from wearing a badly tailored suit and the ability to mumble. Required qualifications should include some idea how to actually do the job.
All thanks to HSE common purpose leaders who lead outside authority.
sure they are just children and we all know what the state thinks about our children.Not a whole lot.
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