Dr. Catherine Conlon:

From the service user experience, we spoke to 48 people who sought to access care under section 12 of the Act. As we have said, it is a complex model of care. It is described as being provided by GPs, but when a woman goes to access care, she does not necessarily know if it is provided. In our study some women assumed all GPs provide it and presented to their own GP or a local GP only to find that they did not and they ultimately found their way to My Options. Within those cases, some women were actively obstructed by doctors. In two cases they gave the impression that they would provide care and invited the woman to come back and essentially were elongating the time before she found a provider.

The review report recommends specific activities to enhance the knowledge about My Options which is the HSE's key infrastructure to allow people access a provider. Even of the 400 GPs who are providing, not all of them are on that list for my options. When somebody finds out that My Options is the access point to find a provider, they phone My Options and are advised of the one closest to them, but that can be quite a distance away. For example, one woman living in a rural area who did not drive had to pay a €90 taxi fare to attend a GP who was providing local to her. Others had to ask for lifts and arrange childcare. It is much more demanding to access this form of healthcare than any other form of healthcare. In that sense the lack of extensive provision of GPs is causing real access issues, particularly in rural areas.