Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I raise the commitment in the programme for Government with regard to improving primary care services. There is a chronic shortage of GPs in Laois and Offaly. There are 37 practising GPs in Laois, which is one for every 2,483 of the population. Five have resigned in the past two years and four have retired, which is a loss of nine. In Offaly, there are just 31 practising GPs, which breaks down to 2,683 of the population to each GP, and there has been a loss of four in the past two years. The IMO recommends that it should be one GP for every 833 of population, but it is generally accepted that it should be approximately 1,000 per GP. We can see that in both of those counties, there is more than 2.5 times the number of people per GP than there should be. It is becoming a real problem, especially in rural but also in urban areas. It is taking weeks to get appointments and it is difficult to get enrolled with a GP or get accepted at a practice. The result is that people are clogging up emergency departments because that is where they are going for GP services.

We need to train, recruit and retain more.

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