Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will move channel away from RTÉ for the time being to the issue of rural doctors and burnout. Dr. Fiona Kelly is one of the finest rural doctors in this country. She has been practising in the Beara Peninsula since 2009. She is dedicated to her job, is hardworking and almost always contactable outside working hours. She offers same-day appointments for anyone in need and still takes on new patients among those who move to the area because she realises that rural GPs are few and far between. She rarely gets a lunch break and never gets home when she should. Despite all this, she still loves her job.

I will reference social media posts Dr. Kelly put up last Friday while on a short holiday in Italy with her family following a tough year for them. This holiday would not have been possible had it not been for a retired GP contacting Dr. Kelly after hearing her discuss on "Prime Time" in 2021 the dire situation facing rural GPs in Ireland. This lovely and obliging GP who agreed to provide cover realised some weeks ago that her medical insurance and registration would run out at midnight on Thursday. She tried in vain to renew it for one more day, to cover Friday, but she was met with a resounding "No" and was told she would have to renew for a full year, which would cost her several thousand euro.

Dr. Fiona Kelly's frantic search in Italy for a single day's cover began. She directly contacted three other GPs to cover Friday but they are not renewing their registration. It seems to be the norm that older GPs are retiring and there is nobody to take on their practices. Dr. Kelly's practice manager contacted two locum companies and placed an advertisement on a GP forum. She also made several word-of-mouth inquiries but, alas, all their efforts were unsuccessful. The difficult decision was taken to close the practice on Friday. Dr. Kelly assures me, when I talked to her at her clinic in Castletownbere on Monday, that this decision was not taken lightly. She did everything in her power to secure a locum doctor for Friday but such doctors simply do not exist. Dr. Kelly received an email on Friday morning from the HSE primary care unit asking her to explain the closure. Dr. Kelly was in Italy receiving calls every 30 to 60 minutes from her excellent practice manager and front office team who were manning the phones and relaying Dr. Kelly's guidance to the many patients needing care in the absence of a GP.

Dr. Kelly has many solutions to the GP manpower crisis that Ireland is currently experiencing. However, nobody has ever asked the opinions of someone like her, who is in the thick of it. Ironically, it took just 30 minutes for a HSE official to contact Dr. Kelly regarding her closure. These were the same people who could do nothing for her days before.

The bottom line is that general practice is on its knees. The manpower situation has reached a crisis level. GPs are retiring in their droves and they are not being replaced quickly enough. This situation was predicted when Dr. Fiona Kelly was a student and absolutely nothing was done about it. GPs who are still working are facing burnout and nobody cares. Dr. Kelly experienced this at first hand on Friday. Officials are quick to pounce when things do not go smoothly but they have nothing positive to say about her 14 and a half years' service. To say that Dr. Kelly is disappointed is an understatement.

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