Rural communities to be hit by health cuts

SCARIFF GP and president of the National Association of General Practitioners (NAGP) has warned the next tranche of Government health cuts will have serious implications for the public, particularly those in rural communities.

Dr Conor McGee warned that proposed Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) cuts are likely to impact the waiting times to see GPs, with waiting lists of up to two days already creeping in, in other locations nationally.

He also highlighted that with GPs taking on extra administration duties, as a result of cut-backs, he foresees telephone triage becoming common practice.

“For example, in Cork there are waiting lists to see GPs. If you ring your GP on a Monday, you might have to wait two days to get to see the GP. Currently, that’s not the case anywhere in Clare that I know of, maybe in Ennis but certainly not in East Clare. That is a prospect that was never there before. I don’t think that is a positive development.

“It is a necessary development in some places because that is the only way they can work things but it reflects the fact that with increasing admin burdens and reducing resources, it is getting harder to see people each day. I don’t think that is a good development for general practice. The Government seem happy with it but on the ground we are not,” he said.

Dr McGee said the organisation has launched a national public awareness campaign highlighting that the fall-out from the next round of FEMPI cuts will start having a real impact on those on the ground and is encouraging the public to highlight their concerns with their local representatives.

“The first round just hurt general practice but people got on with it. However, the last two rounds have targeted rural patients and the elderly. It is now following the last two rounds of cuts that it will really become more and more difficult to meet the demand for services. I really don’t know have the Government thought this through, the fact that they are reducing the value they put on a service and yet they expect the service to be met,” he said.

The purpose of the campaign is to shed light on the impact of the Department of Health’s recent cutbacks. The association predicts the department’s current cut will have an enormous impact on general practice, with longer waiting lists, no home visits and changes in fee structures.

He is now urging the public to stand up to the cuts and contact their local representatives.

“In order to halt the systematic dismantling of general practices, we are calling on members of the public to act now and sign a petition, to contact their public representative immediately and voice their objection to these cutbacks,” he said.

He said the campaign is aimed at informing the public as to why they may have to wait to get GP appointments.

“The cuts, while they make some financial sense to the Government, really are having a significant effect on the ground. What is going to come about is telephone triage or people are going to be landed into casualty.

“Certainly, I believe problems that could have been sorted out in primary care will be passed onto secondary care at significantly increased costs to the State,” he said.

He added that for rural communities, it will be the most vulnerable who will lose out.

“I work in Scariff and there is any number of elderly people who might get a lift to Scariff one day a week. They’ll do their shopping, they’ll go to the butchers, the post office and the doctor on that day and I can’t really tell them in good conscience to come back in two days when we have a free slot. You can’t do that to people but that’s the fall-out of what the Government are doing. We want to make the public aware as to why it has come about in some places,” he said.

Dr McGee also stressed the increasing workload the GPs are being given as a result of cuts to services and highlighted this is detracting from patient care.

“Many people who need medical cards have to fill out forms and are told to get a letter from their doctor. Increasingly we are doing more work that should be centralised so instead of seeing patients, we are going through reasons why they need a letter. If they don’t have the card, they are afraid to attend or they are putting off a small ailment and letting it turn into a big ailment and that is not good medicine and financially for Government, it doesn’t make good sense,” he said.

In addition, Dr McGee said other administration duties not previously the role of GPs are now falling to them.

“We would see that increasingly the outpatients departments are returning patients to GPs to have follow-ups done, such as ultrasound scans and blood tests – functions normally undertaken by the hospitals.

“They are, in effect, outsourcing a lot of their admin work back to primary care but, at the same time, they are reducing our funding so we are getting more work for less funding and, as a result, we feel that the public will start noticing it from here on in,” he said.