GP shortages in Clare
Deputy McGettigan described people in Clare being left without a GP after retirements, forcing them to rely on walk-in clinics or emergency departments. The Tánaiste acknowledged the problem, offered to have the Minister for Health respond, and said GP training places and contract discussions are being expanded.
We are facing a shortage of GPs. People in County Clare have contacted me to state that when their doctor or GP retired, they were left with no GP as they did not have a medical card and they are now reliant on walk-in clinics. People with a medical card have been assigned to already overburdened GPs when their GP retired. People cannot get appointments to see their doctors, leaving them with no choice but to head to accident and emergency departments. Some have to go to walk-in clinics and pay a fee as the walk-in clinics do not accept medical cards.
Some have to borrow money to go to walk-in clinics and others have to make the awful choice to hope for the best and wish for their issues to go away, but usually end up in accident and emergency departments. What can be done to increase the number of doctors working in underserved areas? What is being done to attract, recruit and retain doctors, especially those who are trained here, and make them feel they are welcome and do not need to emigrate due to a lack of housing or the cost of living?
Comment on this
I thank the Deputy for raising an issue that is very real and comes up quite a lot across the country. I will ask the Minister for Health to respond to her on her plans, if the Deputy wants to provide her with examples of some of the issues she referenced in her constituency.
We are very committed to increasing the number of training places for GPs. We have already begun that work and the trajectory will continue and accelerate. We have engaged with GPs on a number of occasions in recent years on their contract in order to make the services they are providing more viable. We are continuing with that work.
The Deputy referred to deprived or underresourced areas in terms of GPs. The HSE has the ability to hire salaried GPs in that case. There are some examples of that already in this city. We are keen to provide that more. There is often an inverse relationship between where the health need is most required and where the number of GPs are populated. I will ask the Minister for Health to come back to the Deputy with more information on that.