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THE HSE HAS been criticised for sending hospital invoices to the grieving families of road traffic victims.
Martin Ferris, Sinn Fein TD, said that this “shows a terrible lack of compassion” and called for the situation to be looked at.
‘Thought it was a mistake’
Deputy Ferris said that his office had heard from a constituent who was sent the invoice after their loved one died “by the side of the road” following a road traffic accident.
The person was brought to hospital by the emergency services.
He said that the devastated constituent “thought that the invoice must have been a mistake”, so Deputy Ferris posed a parliamentary question to Health Minister Dr James Reilly, on the matter.
It was confirmed by Minister Reilly in his reply that the current emergency department charge is €100 per visit, subject to some exemptions.
There is no exemption to this charge for injury acquired through a road accident – and current HSE guidelines say that if a patient is a minor or has passed away, the invoice must be sent to the next of kin or their legal representative.
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Ferris commented:
Surely the distress and grief it causes a bereaved family to get an invoice from the HSE for A&E services, when their loved one is brought in after a fatal accident, is not worth the €100 the HSE demands.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Deputy Ferris said that it is “very insensitive” to send such an invoice to a family member. “They are after losing a loved one – the last thing they want is getting a demand notice,” he said.
“I think it should be looked at,” said Ferris.
He has called on Minister Reilly to “imagine himself in those circumstances and to put a stop to this practice immediately”.
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I may be being naïve about this, but I thought your debts died with you? Why would they go to a next of kin? And what if you had no next of kin? Would the HSE dig up your body and pawn your clothes to get their €100? Miserly
Sorry to burst your bubble Roxy your debts are paid from your estate.
That said your next if kin have no obligation to pay your debts so I would reply and tell them to politely fck off.
Good to know Nimby :)
One of the main jobs of the executor of a will is to pay the dead persons debts from the assets left.
In the case of mortgages they require insurance (which you pay for) to pay off your debt in the case of death
I have only been in hospital a couple of times and naively thought they wanted my next of kin details in case something bad happened they would be able to contact my Family, now it looks like they are just worried that you might die before paying them the €100.
Surely, in order to be liable, contract law states that you have to consent. How can someone who’s certified dead on arrival consent to that contract?
They wouldn’t be pronounced dead until in a hospital, and by a doctor, unless died at scene of accident
The HSE is not a compassionate organisation. However I would of thought this would of been covered by the car insurance
Just how low can we go??
WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!1
Rob you absolute moron.
This has always been the case, my mother received a bill for 110 punts 23 years ago from the health board for hospital services, she received it a day after dads funeral.
The will took nearly three months to clear probate, and until such a time she had no access to the bank account. She explained this to the accounts dept yet she still received numerous reminders and even a final demand threatening court action.
They got paid eventually from the estate.
They never give up, they are heartless.
In fairness the funeral directors would have the good sense not to pester the family as long as it was with the solicitor
This has always been the case Molly yet the posters here still go on about ‘…this government…’ like it was a charge that THIS GOVERNMENT brought in. No it’s not but people will still use it to have a good moan about then current government while being blinded to the true problems in society.
Actually See my vest, the undertaker waited until probate was cleared. He understood and took into account my mothers situation, the health board did not, and that is why I called them heartless.
Trust me lostintallaght, you are completely right. I have seen successive governments over the years and to be honest each is as bad as the last.
I know it is a very sensitive subject and when you loose a loved one then this sort of stuff is the last thing you want to deal with but at the end of the day the HSE isn’t a charity and costs have to be covered.
I am however surprised that in this instant the cost wasn’t sent to the insurance provider of the car that was in the wrong in the accident as this should be the case.
I’m sure the exorbitant charge on car parks at hospitals nowadays could cover such bills! C’mon, FFS, how many RTA’s are there per year that lead to deaths? 300 tops! There’s no excuse for this charged to be imposed!
How many people die a year in general? If its free for people who did due to RTC’s. then it has to be free for everyone else who dies. Who’s going to cover that massive bill then???
Also on a separate not the term Road Traffic Accident (RTA) is no longer used. It is now a Road Traffic Collision (RTC)
Sorry PC brigadier! RTC it is!
Seems when you are dead you can still owe the Government money !!!
Grave tax next, paid annually or risk removal.
There’s nothing new here.
When you die, your assets and liabilities accrue to your estate and it’s up to the executor to pay your debts including your funeral expenses as first claim on your estate. That’s been the law for centuries so what’s the big deal?
If your estate is totally insolvent and doesn’t have the assets to pay your bill then the creditor hospital loses out.
Why should you, as a matter of principle, get off the hook for paying bills just because you die?
I work in a hospital. These charges are automatically generated once a person is registered as attending the hospital. It’s a computerised system. The demanding letters are also computer generated by pulling thousands of stats of attendences. There is no heartless scrouge type person sitting there typing them.
but then its shyte system in fairness, easy enough to flag where a patient has died and be a little more sympathetic about the correspondance.
I understand that the letters sent are automatically generated (I do agree hospitals have to be paid) but what I don’t understand is someone getting a phone call regarding a spouse when said spouse is on life support in icu. As I have heard of recently any they were with vhi so why they couldn’t ring them I do not know!
I am sure the unfortunate has paid health contribution levies during life so demanding a Euro 100 comes across as insensitive.
One wishes that hospitals were so efficient at providing a service as they are to bill it. Like the bill sent to a chap who never received the X-Rays etc charged to him (as reported by the Journal a short while ago).
Queue the boos but the dead man has used (expensive) time and resources that need to be paid for.
Will the undertaker bury him for free?
The assumption is that the next of kin would use the dead persons finances to pay for the services rather than their own.
I was initially going to jump on the lack of compassion bandwagon as it does appear that way but when you think of it I’m sure compassion doesn’t come into it. These bills will be processed in an office by ticking names off a long list of people. Insight into the circumstances of individual I’m sure will not be a factor. And also how can you change it for road accident victims and not factor in other reasons people can arrive at a&e when already dead. It is an unpleasant topic and is very easy to say there is no compassion or its a disgrace but if you really think about it there is nothing really wrong here.
Heartlessness through and through but am I surprised? No. This government never had or never will feel any compassion for those suffering. Unless of course you are a banker.
As per comment below.. this has always been the case. This isn’t something that this government introduced. Get your facts right before you come out with comments
if youd called the fire brigade youd be hit will a bill for hundreds of Euro. Im not sure what the fuss is about though. When someone dies their solicitor has to send letters to the dept of Social welfare etc in case any of them want to claim back money from the estate. And when you go to get a Death Cert they charge you for the privilege the same price for copies even though the git just runs it off a printer. There are any number of bills that roll in the door when someone dies.
Ahhhh I’m with you…. You dont us to call them…. Right… Sounds Very Fianna Gaelabour Party alright
Yeah it is a shite computer system, it’s also a shite waiting list system, appointmentments system, bed management system, outpatients system, management system, employee system… Where exactly would u like to start pointing out flaws?? Of all the sub standard, third world boll#x we put up with in our hospitals, I think flaggin an rip on the system so theres better timing of a letter being posted is kind of low down the list of priorities
There’s no limit to how low this government are willing to go it seems
Think I’d tell them to go dig !!!!
One Word ! > DISGRACE !
Don’t understand some of the righteous indignation here. At what point is it okay to send out a bill?
If the person survives but has a broken leg – Yes/No?
If the person survives but is in a coma – Yes/No?
If the person survives but is in a wheelchair for the rest of their life – Yes/No?
If the person survives but is in a permanent vegetative state – Yes/No?
Is the family of the person in a coma not in distress too wondering if their loved one will wake?
If there’s a cost involved – much more than the €100 charge by the way – and that cost has to be paid at some point does a bill not have to be sent out? I’d be angry if judges or ministers were exempt or something like that but this is just another unfortunate bill that comes along with death. And lets face it, Sinn Féin have been the cause of their fair share of death in the past.
Red thumb away.
If someone is dead before they reach the bloody A&E then they shouldn’t be billed for using said A&E.
No?
@conor they are billed for hospital usage. They are not just left in the car park because they have died on route
In most cases a person cannot be pronounced dead on the side of the road it has to be done in a hospital. ( not 100% sure the reason for this) but that is the case
True enough. We all realise it is a sensitive subject and of course we have compassion for grieving families but in fairness this is an automated system. Maybe if a doctor was writing up a bill for 2 or 3 people he had seen that day we’d have reason to say its a disgrace but these billing systems deal with hundreds of people which means we have to accept they can’t be individually personalised. And like you pointed out the cost of service is a lot higher than 100 euro.
Why aren’t people who are admitted billed if that is the case?
They are billed with the €100 A&E charge. I’m not sure if there is a level of insurance that covers it but I know that my insurace covers everything EXCEPT that charge.
They would be paying a different bill then (or insurance claim). Would rather somebody who actually knows the process to answer but the costs would be covered and paid for still but I guess they don’t hand out multiple bills from hospital
@Conor Foley, you will not be charged the 100 euro if you have a referral letter from your gp.
@conor they are billed unless they’ve a medicalq card. It’s 75e per day in a public hospital. Max of 750per year
There is still a bill with a medical card, you have to call and explain the situation. I know because I dealt with it regarding a deceased relative in the past. Her medical card was valid at the time of the A&E visit but had expired afterward. The first person I spoke to from the hospital said I should apply for another medical card for her, when I suggested that applying for a medical card under a a deceased person’s name might be fraud they passed me on to someone more competant who sorted it and didn’t distress me further in my time of grief.
Many years ago I got a call late at night to say my husband had been moved from the ward to ICU. Two mornings later I received by post, a bill for all his treatments, tests, bed, consultants etc from the hospital. To say I was shocked would be to put it mildly. Thank God, on that occasion, he survived and lived for many more years. I have always found the hospital staff to be absolutely tremendous. Cannot say the same for the administrators.
That’s a bit unfair on the admin staff if they didn’t do their job there would be no nice hospital staff to comment about.
This is nothing short of disgusting it is a demonstration of how the HSE has distanced itself from humanity. The HSE should be disbanded and replaced by a system that serves the people and not the over paid managers and civil service.
Horrible attitude by HSE
Why should the HSE not send out an invoice for services rendered? While I appreciate that a death in the family is a hard time for all concerned (yes we all have been through it) the HSE provides a service which must be paid for. Do you think that the funeral providers are free of charge? The flowers? The grave site? The coffin? The afters… These are all much more expensive than the €100 being charged by the HSE for in many cases the valiant effort they made to save the life in question. If those that die shouldn’t have to pay, then should those that live have to pay extra?
The very same people that complain about this will be the same people complaining about cuts in public health nurses or emergency department beds etc. You cannot have your cake and eat it too….
Do you not think it odd then that a penalty points fine for dangerous driving can be just deleted from the Garda Pulse system when the revenue so cancelled could have bought 300 patrol cars?
In the circumstances where a death has resulted sending a bill for Euro 100 does come across as somewhat hartless. More so given the way the HSE don’t get a good deal for all the medicines it purchases unlike other health services in Europe. Always hit the little vulnerable guy. A real Kiss up and kick down attitude.
Anyone see the irony in Ferris running with this one? In his past he would happily have killed people and not told the relatives where they were buried.
What’s that old song?
‘You took the words right out of my mouth”
Perfect! Amazing how the Shinners are overflowing with both compassion, and, curiously, amnesia….
So who should pay?
Just Wanted to round off my previous comments by saying I really think most grieving families would actually not see this as an insult at all but would be very grateful to the emergency services for taking their loved one off the road and giving them some dignity and for at least making the effort to see if that person could be saved. Martin Ferris should have put more thought into this whole thing before trying to get some media coverage for SF IMO. I admit I was nearly duped by it myself at the start and was about to post what a shambles the HSE is until I actually thought about it and realised there really is nothing wrong with any of this.
It’s amazing. The state can come up with all sorts to get money out of people (see Property Tax), but they can’t put a simple programme into their hospital billing system to ensure that dead people’s families aren’t put through futher trauma.
How do you avoid putting the family through further trauma? At the end of the day services have been used (ambulance, A&E etc.) and these must be paid. How long should the HSE wait before sending out the bill? Is it less traumatic if the wait lets say six months? No its not going to be.
It is an unfortunate situation and I am sure there is nobody working in the HSE enjoys doing it but unfortunately it has to be done.
The fee is for admission to the A&E, not for ambulance or fire brigade services. Car Insurance covers those.
A&E charges were introduced to try and prevent people who didn’t need emergency care from presenting at A&E. Nothing to do with raising revenue. Or so we were told! We pay for our health services through our taxes.
A&E charge is waived if you have a doctor’s referral so I don’t see how it’s about raising revenue. Clearly if you go to the doctor first you don’t pay it!
Let’s all just have an anarchy where nobody ever has to pay for anything in case somebody gets upset.
Why not? This is the Ireland of today. Someone is down?, great, kick them in the crotch! After all, these valuable services must be paid for. Truly, this country is a great place to live, NOT.
Those paramedics and hospital staff work long hard shifts for a pittance, and see things every day that would give you nightmares. The least we can do is take responsibility for a measly hundred euro bill.
That’s a completely different argument. The least we can do is not bill people who are dead for A&E services that they haven’t used whilst they were alive.
It’s like the adolescent “I didn’t ask to be born” argument, except it’s grown adults going “I didn’t ask for there to be A&Es to be available in case I need them”.
It’s like the adolescent “I didn’t ask to be born” argument, except it’s grown adults going “I didn’t ask for there to be A&Es to be available in case I need them”.
160 – 180 people die on the roads every year. Can the HSE not spare the families the indignity for the sake of a miserly €1,800 a year. Computer says ‘no’.
I despair for this island particularly its health services.
Try getting sick in America and then tell me of your despair. The Irish system is flawed but at least you’ll be treated.
This may seem like a tiny detail to focus on, but I’m suprised to learn that the A&E has anything to do with patients who are declared dead at the scene, would such people not go straight to the Morgue? In which case the fee if payable would have a different (and hopelessly less heartless name). Also the only alternative I see to this system, since there are very real costs incurred in transporting someone by ambulance to hospital as well as the attending doctors, paramedics and support staff to be paid. In a situation where the insurer is not involved, surely one of the various different social taxes we already pay could be marginally increased so that collectively we take care of this type of cost?
Most people aren’t pronounced dead on the side of the road (not in all cases), It has to happen in a hospital in most cases (even if they are dead at the scene).
Also your point on the tax is an interesting one but another side of that is why should other people have to pay the cost if the patient who died has enough money in the estate to cover the cost?
I would assume (and am open to correction) that people who have passed away and don’t have enough to cover the costs that have been generated are absorbed by the HSE if no insurance company (be it health or motor in the case of RTC) is involved
They’re usually certified in the ambulance as DOA….at least where I worked.
If you go to Out of Hours Doctor on Call service first, that charge €60 and then the A&E charge is waived.
Interesting way to save €40…… If you’re dead.
If a patient died by the roadside following a RTA, the usual process was to certify them as dead on arrival in the ambulance. Has that changed?????
Just a thought but when you go to A&E they ask have you medical card so if your DOA does medical card cover you, .
Martin Ferris certainly has a sense of entitlement.
The invoice has to go to someone.
189 people died on Irish Roads in 2013, and I don’t see what difference €18,900 would have made to the Health Service Executive, especially when they have been using monies to top up pensions and other outrageous activities. I am totally opposed to this €100 charge.
Its insensitive and repugnant of the Irish Government to even think to invoice families in the aftermath of such tragic circumstances. I have emailed all 166 Dail Deputies and 60 Seanad Deputies to ask to have this matter brought up for discussion in the Dail and the Seanad immediately and seek to have it removed. I’ve had response from some Deputies already telling me they weren’t even aware that this was occurring.
With respect to all Grieving Families. RIP to all Road Victims x.
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