Elderly patient chased by debt agency for €4,000
Aine McMahon
December 12 2019, 12:01am, The Times
The family of an elderly woman with a medical card paid for her to have a hip operation privately after which she contracted septicaemia and incurred a further billLynne Cameron/PA
An elderly woman with a medical card is under pressure from a debt collection agency to repay €4,000 after she received treatment for septicaemia in the private wing of a hospital, a health committee has been told.
Louise O'Reilly, a Sinn Féin TD, called on the HSE to immediately stop referring patients' debt to collection agencies.
Hospitals across Ireland pay debt collection agencies to pursue patients for statutory charges such as the €100 emergency department fee and €80 per night inpatient bill.
She told the Oireachtas health committee: "I want to bring to your attention one example, of an elderly lady who has a medical card, who needed a hip operation. She could not wait so her family clubbed together money. They clubbed together so…