a way to take a legal action against a hospital to get the second medical opinion for DA appeal.

bodhrandude

This is my second trying to get Disability Allowance after being rejected first time, I have emphysema and my GP filled in form first time and second time, now that was rejected and I'm currently in the appeal process again. The problem being that the hospital that diagnosed my problem is fudging the issue of a letter explaining my condition, hence the second medical opinion. My consultant apparently retired during my appeal process and I had to be assigned to someone else, but I can't seem to get a letter from them to explain my condition. What legal action can I take as I believe its my right to get this information to help my appeal. Anyone had a similar situation.

Dempo1

Really sorry to hear this but unfortunately legal action is not only horrendously expensive, taking an action against a Hospital/HSE would likely take years . Legal action is not required to get access to your records.

Your approach, whilst still time consuming, is to request all and any medical records through a freedom of information request to the hospital in question.

Normally there's a FOI officer for a hospital group or some larger ones may have one on staff. It's straightforward enough but will take a few weeks, you can also request your Medical files from your GP separately, but I'd not bother as yours seems supportive. There's two sets of files , Your Hospital records and GP records.

A consultant retiring is irrelevant, your file exists , Patient ID etc and your entitled to access , please note however some information may not be shared if said information is likely to cause harm to the patient (Normally mental health related)

If you are sure a Diagnosis was given , there's no room for Ambiguity when it comes to DA ,the Disease you mention is serious and sadly you will know is irreversible.

My concern, to be honest, without knowing the full details , would be why if a Diagnosis was given and your GP's support evident, what's behind a Decline and now a second appeal, whilst DA extremely difficult to get approval on, there must be good reason to decline an application particularly if a Diagnosis was given. Whilst not every disease or illness guarantees DA approval, yours certainly would fall into the category of debilitating illnesses.

Search getting your medical records HSE , loads of info available.

Good luck.

TooTired123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058254389/a-way-to-take-a-legal-action-against-a-hospital-to-get-the-second-medical-opinion-for-da-appeal

Poor you. As Dempo says, DA can be very tricky.

Forget about suing anyone, you have no legal right to force a doctor to write a report in support of you at all. The health service is on its knees and your consultant hasn’t got time to do these kind of things anymore.

Take Dempos advice and get a copy of your file sent to you, but that’s quite tricky in itself and you really should go to the Citizens Information Service, take that letter of rejection you got and ask for their help to put together an appeal.

Its free and it’s independent so it’s all good.

angela1711

Some good advice already here. You may want to send a freedom of information request to the department of social welfare itself as you would be able to see the exact reasoning for their refusal and would-be able to base your appeal on that. Do not get disheartened by this refusal as the vast majority of DA on IP applications are turned down the first time. One major piece of advise from me is to sent a personal letter with your appeal outlining how your condition affects your everyday life and how it is preventing you from working. I know it must be difficult for you at the moment but I don't see a reason why you should not get it.