HSE Cut backs affecting family planning

tomcollins97

I read with interest this morning an article in the Irish Time relating to medical card patients attending a family planning clinic in Dublin City Centre. The clinic can no longer see patients for family planning as it has run out of funding.

This got me thinking, should contraceptives be available on the medical card? It is not necessary medication, it is not life saving and there are alternatives other than what you pay a doctor to prescribe. The same cannot be said for many medicines which people need to take and rely on for their quality of life.

The cost of the contraceptive pill is approx €12 per month, and 2 GP visits per year to check blood pressure would cost on average €100. This is around €240 per year for every woman on the pill with a medical card. For every thousand women that is nearly a quarter of a million a year! For the four thousand that the clinic has seen so far this amounts to almost €1 million a year!

Now, this isn’t something I have thought much about in the past but surely the states funds could be better spent on improving treatments for cancer, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, diabetes, getting patients off trollys etc rather than on women whose only problem is that they can’t keep their legs crossed….(and so the abuse will start! )

Full article http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0909/1220629651476.html

Extract:
“Family planning service suspended"
KITTY HOLLAND
THE IRISH Family Planning Association (IFPA) has suspended services to medical card holders at its main city-centre clinic in Dublin. The association said yesterday the move had been forced on it as funding from the HSE had been exhausted.
"The IFPA understands that no additional funding will be made available to cover medical card services at its Cathal Brugha Street clinic."
Medical card holders will still be able to access services at the IFPA's other clinic in Tallaght.
A spokeswoman said the association regretted the suspension of services to medical card holders and advised people to attend their GP instead, though she added that some GPs did not offer the full range of family planning services.
There had been a "substantial" increase in demand for services from medical card holders in recent months.
"Already this year we have provided over 4,000 appointments to medical card clients from our city-centre clinic. The suspension of these services may have serious consequences for these clients in their choice of contraception.
A spokeswoman for the HSE said the IFPA was funded on an annual basis. "The level of funding is limited to an agreed allocation discussed at various local service level agreement meetings throughout the year. The IFPA were advised in July of this year that additional funding would not be available to address expenditure overruns, and were requested to review the service to ensure they remain within their available budget allocation.
"However, IFPA have exceeded their budget over the past number of years despite clear agreements in place for funding."

O'Morris

tomcollins97 wrote: »

This got me thinking, should contraceptives be available on the medical card?

Absolutely. Contraceptives prevent women getting pregnant and having children. Can you not see it would be a good thing that some people don't get pregnant and have children?

tomcollins wrote:

The cost of the contraceptive pill is approx €12 per month, and 2 GP visits per year to check blood pressure would cost on average €100. This is around €240 per year for every woman on the pill with a medical card. For every thousand women that is nearly a quarter of a million a year! For the four thousand that the clinic has seen so far this amounts to almost €1 million a year!

Compare that to the cost of looking after the children produced as a result of denying the contraceptives. How much does it cost the taxpayer to pay for childrens allowance, medical cards and other freebies for the offspring of those women who would normally avail of those medical-card funded contraceptives?

tomcollins wrote:

Now, this isn’t something I have thought much about in the past but surely the states funds could be better spent on improving treatments for cancer, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, diabetes, getting patients off trollys etc rather than on women whose only problem is that they can’t keep their legs crossed…

It saves money in the long-term. It costs less to prevent people having children than it does for the state to look after the children produced. I would like to see more family planning and free contraception, not less.

tomcollins97

O'Morris wrote: »

Absolutely. Contraceptives prevent women getting pregnant and having children. Can you not see it would be a good thing that some people don't get pregnant and have children?.

Why not go down the steralisation road?

O'Morris wrote: »

Compare that to the cost of looking after the children produced as a result of denying the contraceptives. How much does it cost the taxpayer to pay for childrens allowance, medical cards and other freebies for the offspring of those women who would normally avail of those medical-card funded contraceptives? .

Should the tax payer have to provide so much suppost for single/young/dienfranchised parents?

O'Morris wrote: »

It saves money in the long-term. It costs less to prevent people having children than it does for the state to look after the children produced. I would like to see more family planning and free contraception, not less.

Again, should the state be many so much in benefits?

O'Morris

tomcollins97 wrote: »

Why not go down the steralisation road?

As long as it was voluntary and the person being sterilised was being well compensated, I wouldn't have an objection.

I think there's a organisation providing that service for the crack junkies in New York.

Should the tax payer have to provide so much suppost for single/young/dienfranchised parents?

Probably not, but I'm willing to bet that even if that support was cut in half it would still probably cost more money for the taxpayer than it would if those people didn't have the children in the first place.

Again, should the state be many so much in benefits?

I would like to see a reduction but then I don't know what the effect would be. Maybe it would result in those parents getting their act together and behaving more responsibly or maybe it wouldn't and the children would suffer.