Browne calls for redeployment of staff to speed up medical cards
TD JOHN Browne wants more civil servants assigned to processing medical card applications. The Fianna Fáil politician said that the number of constituents contacting him as they waited in limbo for their cards was 'unreal'. He revealed that he had at least 120 cases on his desk, some of them dating back to July and August of last year.
'The maximum wait for a medical card application to be processed should be 15 days. At the moment it's looking more like 15 weeks,' complained Deputy Browne. He felt that personnel assigned to the matter in Dublin simply cannot cope with the volume of work coming their way.
'Under the Croke Park Agreement, staff should be redeployed to speed up the process,' he said, calling on the Ministers for Social Protection and Health to intervene.
'In the meantime, those with chronic illnesses are left unable to pay their medical bills after the HSE essentially pulled the rug from under them.'
