Report highlights 'two-tier' healthcare in Tallaght

The risks associated with "the two-tier" health service are highlighted in a report on the health of the people of Tallaght, its authors say.

"People Living in Tallaght and Their Health", commissioned by the Adelaide Hospital Society and carried out by Trinity College Dublin, states that more than one-third (35 per cent) of Tallaght's population has neither private health insurance nor a medical card. Some 1,313 people in 420 households were surveyed.

Thirty per cent of people in the 13 district electoral wards have private health insurance, which is "much lower than the proportion (45 per cent) of the Irish population as a whole," the report states.

More than a third are ineligible for medical card cover, "indicating that a sizeable vulnerable minority are dependent on the public services or their own financial resources for healthcare. "Socio-economic breakdown of the population indicates that this poses a considerable strain on their financial resources," it continues. The proportion with no health cover has decreased by just 1 per cent, to 35 per cent, in the last five years.

The report finds "high levels of chronic illness and disability", with 54 per cent of households reporting at least one person suffering in this way. The most common chronic illnesses are respiratory (32 per cent) and cardio-vascular (24 per cent). Four per cent of the population were on a waiting-list for hospital admission, with 33 per cent of these waiting more than 12 months.

"A lower proportion of household members (3 per cent) living in less deprived areas were waiting for healthcare at the time of the survey compared to the proportion (5 per cent) in the more deprived areas." High levels of stress are "endemic", the report states.

Fifty-nine per cent of primary carers in each household have had stress in the past year, putting GPs under pressure "to prescribe drugs". There is "little evidence of non-pharmacological support for stressed patients".