Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Primary care centres around the country can allow for step-down care. Why has the Government not used primary care centres more often? Who is stopping the primary care centres from being built and why have we not extended the primary care centres that are there at the moment to ensure we can take the pressure off accident and emergency departments? If somebody wants oxygen or wants to have a drip for a day, why can we not use the primary care centres to do it? That would encourage the GPs to put a structure in place. Let us consider Kilmallock. It has five GPs and a primary care centre. There is planing permission in place for another 6,000 sq. ft to be added, which could allow for step-back care that would take the pressure off for people who want to get stitches. It would also allow more young GPs to go into primary care centres with structures that would allow them to have time off and allow them to have quality of life and a family. We are killing GPs at the moment by overloading them with people who are looking for care. What do they do? They have to send those patients into the accident and emergency departments that are oversubscribed at the moment. Why can the Government not look at the primary care centres? Who is responsible for stopping primary care centres being built in Munster and other areas where the infrastructure and planning can be put in place straight away? We could take care into our own hands.

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