It’s not often we’re singing the praises of Mary Harney but that might be about to change today if reports on the front of this morning’s papers are to be believed.
‘Subsidised GP visits for everyone proposed in report’ reads the headline in this morning’s Irish Times, who report that the Minister for Health has commissioned a report recommending that existing medical schemes be scrapped in favour of primary care cards for all.
The primary care cards, which would be divided into categories depending on income levels and those most in need of medical care, would replace existing schemers such as the medical card, GP visit cards, drug refunds and long-term illness, and tax reliefs on healthcare spending.
The same story is covered in the Irish Independent, below the obligatory photograph of Oxegen revellers which adorns the front of most of today’s papers.
‘€40 cap on GP fees’ is the headline in the Indo which goes a little further to reveal that GP fees will be capped at €40 as part of the reforms in an attempt to make health care more affordable for people on low incomes, who can scarcely afford the currently prohibitive prices which can be as high as €60 for a single visit to a GP.
More health related issues on the front of today’s Irish Examiner, who tell of a shocking cover-up by a doctor in Ballincollig, co. Cork which has left a Cork Garda with only months to live.
‘My family is facing down the barrel of a gun’ headlines the report into the devious acts of Dr. Patrick Joseph Lee, who failed to pass on test results to a patient of his, Superintendent Martin Dorney, who now has six to nine months to live as a result of Dr Lee’s negligence.
Dorney went to see Lee on his return from holidays in 2003, after he was concerned about a mole that developed on his knee. Although the mole was not malignant, it displayed characteristics that may be a pre-cursor to cancer. The recommendation for surgery was made but not acted upon as Dr Lee was on holidays when the report came back.
It was only in March of last year when Dorney returned to Lee with a diagnosis of metastatic malignant melanoma that Lee realised his error and attempted to modify the report to suggest that the recommendation for further surgery had never been made.
Mr Lee has expressed profound regret for his actions saying, “I have lived with the embarrassment and the shame I have caused my own family from a place I never envisaged myself being.â€
