Medical centre charge increase

MiamiMortimer

Dropped in to book an appointment for a routine blood test and was told that I could no longer get one without paying for a doctor's consultation (€25) in addition to the cost of the test itself (€10)!

The receptionist said that the nurses were no longer available for appointments, which seemed crazy to me. Didn't the SU allegedly go to all sorts of lengths to hammer out a charges agreement with the centre last semester?

There's no way I can afford to pay €35 for routine bloods every couple of months - and I can't imagine I'm the only one with this issue :mad:

Moxy Shazbot

MiamiMortimer wrote: »

Dropped in to book an appointment for a routine blood test and was told that I could no longer get one without paying for a doctor's consultation (€25) in addition to the cost of the test itself (€10)!

The receptionist said that the nurses were no longer available for appointments, which seemed crazy to me. Didn't the SU allegedly go to all sorts of lengths to hammer out a charges agreement with the centre last semester?

There's no way I can afford to pay €35 for routine bloods every couple of months - and I can't imagine I'm the only one with this issue :mad:

You know what I'm sick of people complaining in UL it's constant moan moan moan. People taking what they have for granted. Yes the SU did protest this last year and got a lot of the charges either reduced and some dropped. You know what you could have done instead of b*tching here. You could email them and ask.

And as for 35 euro every few months. Do you drink? do you go to the cinema? do you eat fast food? By few months I'll go with 2 months. So thats 8 weeks. That's 4.38 (I'm rounding up) a week. Do you buy coffee in the shop? That's two coffees a week.

Here's a good one if you don't want to pay the reduced price. Go to a doctor outside of UL and pay the full 50.

YFlyer

Somebody rattled your cage

Ave Sodalis

Moxy Shazbot wrote: »

You know what I'm sick of people complaining in UL it's constant moan moan moan. People taking what they have for granted. Yes the SU did protest this last year and got a lot of the charges either reduced and some dropped. You know what you could have done instead of b*tching here. You could email them and ask.

And as for 35 euro every few months. Do you drink? do you go to the cinema? do you eat fast food? By few months I'll go with 2 months. So thats 8 weeks. That's 4.38 (I'm rounding up) a week. Do you buy coffee in the shop? That's two coffees a week.

Here's a good one if you don't want to pay the reduced price. Go to a doctor outside of UL and pay the full 50.

Nobody let him into the bitch about UL thread!! A day in and already sick of the complaining...
Seriously though, Im not OP but I'll answer your questions for you; Drink? No. Cinema? No. Fast food? Rarely. Coffee? No.
Here's another question based on the answers above... Would I be happy to pay €35 routinely? Nope! Why? Well because its blood tests, not coffee.
OP, with so many tests, are you entitled to a medical card or allowance or anything?

MiamiMortimer

Moxy Shazbot wrote: »

You know what I'm sick of people complaining in UL it's constant moan moan moan. People taking what they have for granted. Yes the SU did protest this last year and got a lot of the charges either reduced and some dropped. You know what you could have done instead of b*tching here. You could email them and ask.

And as for 35 euro every few months. Do you drink? do you go to the cinema? do you eat fast food? By few months I'll go with 2 months. So thats 8 weeks. That's 4.38 (I'm rounding up) a week. Do you buy coffee in the shop? That's two coffees a week.

Here's a good one if you don't want to pay the reduced price. Go to a doctor outside of UL and pay the full 50.

Actually, I've had to take time off college to stay at home and pay €20 with my usual GP. Blood tests don't cost €50. I would imagine that with your assumption that they do, you are in the fortunate position of not having to pay for meds, consultations, MRIs, etc. for a longterm health condition you have absolutely no control over. This isn't coffee or a cinema trip. It's not fast food or going out for drinks with friends. It's not something I, or most other people in the position of having to use the health centre can help: no-one submits to blood tests because they're fun, or because they have nothing else to do with their money. Not that I have to justify my posting, of course. I would have thought that was reasonably obvious to any rational person

It should also go without saying that changing a price from €10 one semester to €35 the next does not make €35 a 'reduced' price. I would say more, but that's kinda...obvious? Y'know, as in 35 > 10? Hmmm.

Finally, I find it interesting that you appear to know whether or not I have emailed the SU in addition to making this post...

ninty9er

I knew this would happen, which is why I wanted SA to close it altogether and allocate the budget to bulk buying the service from a private operator. Is the SHC really necessary now that some of its products are more expensive than those on offer to students from practices who actually have an ethos of customer service?

canned_ulkc

If it's routine and from an ongoing issue and they're insisting you see a doc for a consultation every time then surely you could have your home doc forward your details to them (or just make a phonecall) to say that you just need the bloods taken.

Then it would be €10 each time, not €35.

To be honest, that doesn't seem unreasonable. I'm sure they weren't free at home.

If so, and the medical centre are still an issue, your first port of call should be the SU (probably the welfare officer) rather than boards.ie....

jonny_bravo

Moxy Shazbot wrote: »

You know what I'm sick of people complaining in UL it's constant moan moan moan. People taking what they have for granted.

Sounds like someone has the typical old Irish attitude of not questioning for improvement and 'make do' and be grateful attitude.

Do you think having a right to FREE public medical care outside of the college as a medical card holder makes sense when you are charged for minor duties such as blood tests is right?

People don't take medical cards for granted, they are scarce enough to come by without mistreating them in terms of means testing, etc. So maybe medical card holders SHOULD take what they have for granted because they deserve it for a reason!!

I know myself fortunately as a medical card holder I only had to use the medical centre once in the last 4 years, even at that it was booked for the week so I had to wait til the weekend because omy college schedule. Even though I had known about these ridiculous charges I was reminded other shock when I had resersched the times\cost prior to ringing for an appointment.