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Paying for transportation to hospital?

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  • 22-08-2012 7:21pm
    #1
    Ciderswigger
    Closed Accounts Posts: 941 ✭✭✭


    Hi,

    This might be in the wrong forum so feel free to move it.

    Is it true that medical card holders have to pay for ambulance/minibus to and from the hospital?


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    #2
    mrsbyrne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,228 ✭✭✭mrsbyrne


    If a patient wants/needs to be transported to/from a hospital appointment, and that appointment has been organised through the public system (as opposed to privately) then they need to ask their GP/practice nurse to organise that for them.
    A patient cannot make these arrangements themselves. The ambulance service will only deal with an appropriate health professorial.
    Be aware that even though your appointment maybe in the AM, you will more than likely (almost certainly) be waiting until 5pm or even later for the return journey.
    There is no charge for this service.


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    #3
    Ciderswigger
    Closed Accounts Posts: 941 ✭✭✭Ciderswigger


    Thanks for the reply. :)

    My mum (who has a medical card)has been in a nursing home for 6 years and the appointment was made for her local hospital. The nursing home usually book the ambulance and it takes her and a staff member over. They then ring for an ambulance and it eventually takes them back to the home.

    This time the home is suggesting a wheelchair minibus takes her because the ambulance has been simply not showing up for collections or arriving too late.

    The minibus option was used 2 or 3 times previous when mum had to go to a clinic and not the hospital. We never had to pay for the use of it.

    But this time we have conflicting stories. The matron of the nursing home is saying that we won't have to pay but the head nurse mentioned today that we would have to pay.

    We're not sure where we stand, as we are making the choice to not use the (free) facility of the ambulance but in a way our hand is being forced due to it not being available (I do understand that if an emergency came up that the ambulance must go to that rather than be a taxi for my mum but that's a whole other story about the HSE. :rolleyes:)


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