Hospital in-patient fees abolished from today

Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, has announced that public in-patient charges have been abolished in all public hospitals. 

The abolition of these fees will be coming into effect today, Monday April 17.

Previously, patients could be charged €80 per day, which went up to a maximum of €800 in a year for people accessing care as a public patient in all public hospitals.

The Minister for Health has signed the Commencement Order, providing for the removal of charges from today.

Stephen Donnelly released a statement about the scrapping of the public in-patient charges which reads, “I am delighted to announce that from today, people will no longer be charged when accessing public inpatient care in our public hospitals”.

“This legislation removes the existing financial burden of public inpatient charges when accessing care in a public hospital. The removal of these charges, announced as part of Budget 2023, is an important step towards reducing the healthcare costs of patients and families”.

He continued, “This measure builds on the abolition of public in-patient charges for children, which I introduced last year, and is another significant step in ensuring that people have access to affordable healthcare services”.

Medical card holders and certain other people were already exempt from these charges. 

It was announced in September of last year that these in-patient hospital fees were abolished for children under the age of 16.

At the time of the abolishment, Minister Donnelly stated, “It helps ease the financial burden of parents/ guardians and ensures cost is not a significant consideration when children need to be in hospital”.