Independent TD for Laois Offaly, Carol Nolan, has said that many rural residents are witnessing what amounts to ‘an effective collapse in rural located health services’.
Deputy Nolan was speaking after a survey of 275 registered GPs nationwide conducted by the Irish Independent, revealed more than 50% of GPs cannot accept new patients.
The survey also revealed that the situation was significantly worse in rural Ireland where more than 2 out of 3 GPs are not taking on new patients and some have waiting times of up to two weeks for an appointment:
“There is no doubt that right across the country, but particularly in rural communities we are watching the slow demise of health services, despite hundreds of millions being added to the national health budget every year,” said Deputy Nolan.
“This clearly points to what I have been saying for some years now; that there is a work and practice culture within the HSE and within the regulatory environment more broadly that is simply making it impossible to retain and attract staff.
“Many of the GP’s speak about the cost of insurance, the cost of over-heads and dealing with an overly bureaucratic system that is taking them away from what should be their patient-centred role.
“Many of these things are within the gift of government to address.
“What really alarms me is that these findings compound the already existing emergency with the provision of dental care.
“I know from my own engagement with the Irish Dental Association that children are waiting up to ten years for treatment and that last year 99,367 children had been seen under the school screening programme, which is less than half of those who were eligible.
“I am also aware of the particularly severe shortage of dentists offering treatment to medical card holders for a number of years now.
“The Chief Officer of the HSE’s Midlands Louth Meath Community Health Organisation, Des O’Flynn, previously confirmed to me that the number of dentists registered to treat patients under the Dental Treatment Service Scheme (DTSS) scheme is 10 in Co Offaly and just 1 in Co Laois.”
“All of this points to an extremely grim picture for rural health services of the most basic kind. This is a national health emergency, and it is time the government started treating it as such.”
