Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the Minister of State's response. It referred to out-of-hours services and concluded by saying, "Any changes to the current service provision in any treatment centre would be subject to discussion with and approval by the HSE Cork-Kerry community healthcare chief officer." That is what I was trying to say - that the communication between the HSE and GPs in SouthDoc does not seem to be there. One person wrote to me to say that if, for example, the other out-of-hours services providers and the HSE adopted such ludicrous measures, the whole system would collapse, but luckily for the people and patients of County Cork, it is only SouthDoc that seems to be doing so.

I welcome the Minister of State telling us that the system will remain open, but the left hand is not seeing what the right hand is doing. The HSE is saying it is implementing things and will cut one-third of the services. It gives the case for why it is not viable. It has a hugely detrimental effect on the whole north Cork area which will spill out to Midleton or to Cork University Hospital or to Mallow. It is not feasible. I will give the Minister of State the information I have and appeal to her to ask the HSE precisely what has happened, where is the breakdown with the board members, and what happened with the board meeting. Why were the GPs not consulted? It is worst for the patients in the area who need the service. They are in fear of what might happen and all they want is clarity that the service will be protected well into the future. We all know that rural areas are losing GPs all the time. It must be sorted out once and for all.

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