Phasing out of prescription medicine charges part of Sinn Fein health plan

Sinn Fein’s healthcare plan includes the phasing out of charging for prescription medicines for all households and hiring an additional 40,000 healthcare staff.

The party said it would legislate for the changes to provide free prescription medicines in the first 100 days if elected to government.

Entitled A Prescription for Change, the document includes 350 measures across 60 policy areas, in a five-year multi-annual funding plan.

Launching its healthcare policy on Tuesday, the plan has an additional expenditure of 5.4 billion euro on the current health budget.

Sinn Fein said it would set a savings and efficiencies target of at least one billion euro, equating to 4% of the current health budget.

The party has pledged to recruit 40,000 healthcare workers over five years, and attract Irish workers home.

They have also pledged to give a job guarantee to health graduates, and mandate a 34% reduction in agency staffing and increase direct employment.

The party said it will also deliver 5,000 hospital beds by 2031, including the replacement of 1,000 unsafe beds to “set the course” to eliminate the use of hospital trolleys.

If elected to government, the party said it would also task Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) to recommend a location for a second emergency department in the Midwest.

Launching the plan, the party’s health spokesman said: “This document was done on the back of engagement and consultation with thousands of people.

“I’ve had 150 meetings over the course of the last two years. We’ve met with patients and their families, children with disabilities, children with scoliosis and their families, medical professionals, doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants, dentists, health campaigners, health advocate groups.

“I’ve met and talked to anybody and everybody that would talk to me about healthcare.

“On the back of that, we have produced an in depth, comprehensive, detailed, but necessary health plan that will transform health services for citizens.

“I don’t believe that we should accept failure as normal in healthcare.

“It is not acceptable to me that patients are on hospital trolleys all year round, what was a winter trolley crisis is now an all-year-round trolley crisis.”

He added: “We have five first 100 day commitments, which actually sets out the tone of what a Sinn Fein government would do from day one, from the minute, if we got the chance to be in government, we will roll up our sleeves and we’re ready to deliver health and housing and childcare and all of these issues, and that’s what this plan is about.

“Our five first 100 day commitments to legislate for free prescription medicines for all, which is a big ask, but also one that I believe is necessary.

“The biggest expansion of medical cards in decades, delivered on a phase basis; commence negotiations for a public GP contract, which is a landmark proposal that we have on our plans again. Most European countries have public GPs. Ireland is an outlier, and we want to make sure that changes to give GPs a choice.

“Publish a revised health plan for 5,000 hospital beds out to 2031; task HIQA to recommend a location for a second emergency department in the Midwest.”

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said it is a “time for a new era” for healthcare in Ireland, an “era of determination and delivery for the people”.

“Sinn Fein in government will bring that urgency to fixing healthcare and delivering better services across the island,” she added.

“This is a plan for a better future in healthcare, the plan for tackling waste and delivering better health services, the plan to ensure you get the right care in the right place at the right time.

“Given the opportunity, a Sinn Fein-led government will transform health care. In the coming weeks, at the general election, we will ask the people of Ireland to give us that chance.”

The party’s spokesman for finance, Pearse Doherty, said the plan “envisages real reform” within the health sector.

“Sinn Fein would ensure that reform and funding go hand in hand,” he added.

“What we’re proposing to fund this plan, it’s 5.4 billion euro of additional measures in the package, and this is funded through a number of ways.

“There’s 3.6 billion euro of additional health expenditure, in terms of current expenditure within the Department of Health, there’s 829 million euro additional expenditure in the Department of Disability Services.

“There is a billion euro in relation to savings that we are identifying in our health plan.

“We would set these rising targets, averaging 200 million per year over the five-year term.

“So 200 million in the first year, 400 million and so on, till we got to a billion euro savings by year five.”