Almost twenty three thousand people still waiting for Medical Cards – McGrath
Independent TD Mattie McGrath has described as utterly unacceptable the scale of the existing backlog with respect to Medical Card Applications. Deputy McGrath was speaking after he was informed through a Parliamentary Question to the Minister for Health Leo Varadkar that the number of Medical Card applications in progress as of 14th January 2016 is 22,872:
“These numbers are indicative of the paralysis that continues to exist in terms of processing desperately needed Medical Cards.
The vast bulk of the nearly twenty three thousand that are still waiting are new applicants from 2015-totalling 10,336 altogether.
A further 7,074 are mired in the review stage since 2015 with no hope that their applications will be processed anytime soon as can be seen from the further 1,575 who have been added to the review list since the beginning of this year alone.
In the face of all this, as well as an escalating crisis within GP practice that is going to become more pronounced and severe, it is time the Minister admitted that his approach to the development of health policy has been an utter failure,” concluded Deputy McGrath.
