The HSE West and North West region had the highest percentage of its population availing of a medical card in 2022, according to the latest CSO data.
Of the 760,000 people living in the region, 34% had a medical card and 11% had a GP visit card.
The region covers Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo, and Galway. It had a population of 759,652 people as of April 2022, with the highest age group percentages being 40-44-years for females, and 10-14-years for males. The percentage of its total population availing of disability allowance was 3%, carer’s allowance (2%), invalidity pension (1%), and illness benefit was 2%.
Commenting on today’s release, Steven Conroy, Statistician said the results are from a data matching project, carried out by the CSO, to analyse and provide demographic and health statistics on the new HSE Health Regions.
This was calculated using Census 2022 and other administrative data sources.
“This release provides population pyramids showing age groups and sex for each of the six HSE Health Regions,” he said.
“It also calculates provisional population percentages in relation to medical cards, GP visit cards, and other selected Department of Social Protection (DSP) payments related to health outcomes for each of the HSE Health Regions. The population profiles and the proportion of people with medical cards, GP visit cards, and selected DSP payments was consistent for each HSE Health Region.”
