The Ministry of Health has refuted suggestions that physicians will increase charges because they will be taking on indigent patients following the controversial closure of the Medical Clinic. Cash currently used to run the facility, formerly known as the Indigent Clinic, will in future be used to help fund their treatment at private GPs and specialists across the Island, a Ministry spokesman stressed yesterday.

The Ministry was responding to a letter in Tuesday’s Royal Gazette which suggested doctors would put up their charges from about $75 to $125 per visit to help accommodate former Medical Clinic patients, many of whom are homeless, elderly or mentally ill and unable to afford their own treatment.

A Ministry spokesman said: “The Ministry of Health wishes to note that, contrary to suggestions by a letter to the editor in the Royal Gazette, there is no evidence to suggest that physicians are going to raise their charges in direct response to the closure of the Medical Clinic. It was noted that the funding for this initiative will be supported by the indigent subsidy that presently supports the Clinic.”

The spokesman said some private physicians already provided free medical care to indigent patients “out of a personal belief to provide quality healthcare to all”. Such physicians would now receive compensation for those patients and for any new indigent patients they treat in the future, the spokesman added.

More than 3,000 people have signed a petition protesting against the closure of the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital facility, arguing that it gives vulnerable patients access to treatment, prescriptions and medical supplies under one roof.

However, Government has stated it is likely to shut the clinic down in any case by the end of June.