Dr. Mary Flynn:

I will address Deputy O'Reilly's question on patients being turned away. The concept of a medical card patient being turned away as opposed to another patient is something that is alien to most of us. I am 22 years in the clinic where I work. In general practice, we pride ourselves on the fact that GMS patients and private patients are treated 100% the same way. There are no different investigations or waiting times. It is completely equitable. However, GP lists close. We are a six-doctor practice and there are occasions when we have to say we are not taking new patients because we have reached a safe capacity. Our college sets superb standards for the treatment of our patients. If we are going to treat our patients to those standards we cannot take on more than we can safely manage. If we did, we would leave ourselves and the patients exposed to missing something or to litigation, for example. There is limited capacity and that is why in lots of towns around the country patients are being told there is no capacity. It is a travesty that that is the situation because they go from one practice to the next and finally somebody takes them on. This is where capacity is so critical. Dr. Ó Tuathail will address the fact that keeping our trainees is what we need to do to address the capacity.