Hospitals told to stop charging trolley patients

The Health Service Executive is to instruct hospitals to stop levying daily in-patient charges on people on trolleys in accident and emergency departments.

Patient representative groups had complained that patients on trolleys awaiting admission to a hospital bed were being asked to pay a €55 daily charge in some cases. A spokesman for the Health Service Executive last night that "this should not have happened".

"We are instructing hospitals that charges should not be levied in these circumstances in the future, the spokesman for the HSE told The Irish Times last night.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Minister for Health Mary Harney said last night that the Department of Health had sought a report on the charging policy for in-patients being applied by hospitals.

The spokesman said it was quite clear that in-patient charges were only permitted after a person had been admitted. Informed sources said last night that confusion may have arisen in hospitals as a result of patients from the accident and emergency department being accommodated on a temporary basis in day wards.

Jeanette Byrne, of the Patients Together organisation, which has been lobbying for improved accident and emergency services, last night called for all patients who had been wrongly charged to be reimbursed by hospitals and the Department of Health.

Ms Byrne also called on the HSE to make clear to patients when precisely they should be charged for services in hospitals.

She said she was sure that some patients did not know that they did not have to pay the accident and emergency charge if they presented with a letter from their GP.

Opposition parties last night also criticised the inappropriate levying of charges by hospitals and demanded that patients receive refunds.

Labour Party health spokeswoman Liz McManus said it was "scandalous" that patients who had to endure being treated in A&E departments should be charged.

Fine Gael health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey said he believed patients who had been charged inappropriately should be able to reclaim the money back.