Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We hear that at Cabinet yesterday a proposal to allow GPs to opt out of the scheme to bring free GP care to the under-fives was discussed. Today, Dr. Ray Walley of the IMO described the scheme and the Government's approach as courting disaster. I and other Deputies recently met with a large group of Wicklow GPs who described the proposal as a mistake. They explained that there is no extra capacity to deal with the extra visits in which this will inevitably result and that in consequence, other patients with more pressing medical or financial needs will either not be seen or will wait much longer to be seen. They predict that children will be brought to them who do not need to be seen, leading to other people who do need to be seen not being seen. They could not understand why the under-fives as a group are being targeted ahead of those who are either in greater need of medical care or cannot afford it.

What the Government is doing does not make any sense. With one hand, it is clearly taking medical cards away from people who desperately need them and with the other, it will give GP cards to many people who do not need them. What GPs are saying is that this will lead to yet more waste in a very wasteful health care sector, with GPs seeing people who do not need to be seen and, therefore, not seeing patients who do need to be seen.

It is clear that the GPs were not consulted in any meaningful way as this plan was put together. The scheme and the approach that the Government has taken is further alienating a GP sector that is crying out about what is already happening in primary care. The GPs pointed out that there are very few young GPs entering the sector, that three out of every four graduating GPs in Ireland are emigrating and that the GPs who are here are advising their colleagues not to come home because of what is happening in primary care and general practice. They explained that the HSE embargo has exacerbated this situation and pointed out that there is a six-month wait for physiotherapy appointments in Wicklow.

Based on common sense, the fact that medical cards are clearly being taken away from people who need them and what appears to be a very solid consensus from the GPs, does the Taoiseach agree that this scheme should be shelved and that money in health care should not be directed using a carte blanche approach but to those who either cannot afford the care or need it most?

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