This article is from page 8 of the 2009-03-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
TAKING the medical card office out of Ennis will destroy the flexibility of the service and could leave many people who are entitled to medi- cal cards without them, it has been warned.
The Health Service Executive has announced that it is to close the medical cards office in the Sandfield Centre in Ennis, where 11 staff are currently employed.
The service will be centralised in Dublin as part of the HSE’s plan to Am eKe ys ASF
But Ennis councillor Joe Arkins, has warned that centralising the
service in Ennis will take away vital flexibility.
‘‘A person may be over the earnings limit for a medical card but they may still qualify. If someone lives in Mul- lagh and drives to Ennis to work, that is the kind of thing that can be taken into consideration and that takes lo- cal knowledge. We now have to try to translate that information to some- one in an office in Dublin. It won’t work,” the councillor said.
STAs Cima sc bunce mm sit mmenomm Els. ibility of the service will be seriously WOK oee
‘At present you can go to the office in Ennis, outline your circumstances and have an emergency medical card
in a matter of hours. That will be gone. This is a totally retrograde step and flies in the face of the Govern- ment’s decentralisation policy.”
The decision comes following a stark warning from the head of the HSE, Professor Brendan Drumm, that required cost-cutting measures will soon begin to impact on front- line health services.
11 staff are employed in medical card and drug payment services at the Sandfield centre which is one of 32 offices across the country.
The jobs in Ennis and other centres are now under threat following con- firmation from the HSE that it plans to centralise primary care re-im-
bursement services to Dublin to save €10 million a year with temporary staff to be made redundant and other staff redeployed to other jobs.
Staff in Ennis say they are also concerned about the loss of personal contact with members of the public and IMPACT union spokeswoman for Clare Sinead Wynne said there is more than administration services being lost.
Ennis staff are now looking to their union to open negotiations with the HSE in a bid to reverse the plans and IMPACT has called on the public to support it’s members “before the people of Clare lose another impor- tant service”.