Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Good morning. I want to start by laying out the background to the issue relating to SouthDoc in Blackpool. As my constituency colleague, the Minister of State must be well aware of this matter. In 2020, the close of SouthDoc in Blackpool was announced on foot of the Covid-19 crisis. At the time, I raised concerns. Those concerns proved to be well founded when SouthDoc clearly stated that it was not going to reopen its service in Blackpool. This meant that constituents of mine in the north side of the city had to travel over to Kinsale Road in order to be seen by a GP.

I raised this matter in the Chamber at the time with the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister for Health and with everyone else in order to outline how important SouthDoc in Blackpool was for my constituency. The HSE expressed serious concerns about the clinical consequences of this decision. The basis for those concerns was that people who should have been attending the SouthDoc treatment centre in Blackpool would have to be driven to the Mercy University Hospital and to Cork University Hospital, CUH, accident and emergency departments which are already severely overcrowded. People on the north side of Cork were so sick and tired of being neglected, they launched a Trojan campaign which led to SouthDoc in Blackpool reopened.

Last year, SouthDoc essentially closed its facility in Blackpool for a second time. It reduced the number of doctors to one, and it is now saying that the doctor who is on call is based in Blackpool. This means that most of the time, people cannot get GP appointments in at the SouthDoc facility in Blackpool. It is not just me saying this. Figures I obtained from the Minister for Health indicate that there was a 70% reduction in the number of people being seen by SouthDoc in Blackpool in January of this year in comparison with previous years. The HSE is telling me that its facilities are closed, but the figures speak for themselves.

Last night, I put a post on Facebook letting my constituents know that I would be speaking here this morning and raising their concerns and asking them to outline their experiences. I invite the Minister of State to go onto my Facebook page and look at the comments they have put in. They indicate how they have been obliged to travel from the north side over to the south side with sick children and sick family members.

I will explain how important SouthDoc in Blackpool is. One lady told me how last August when the service was still open, she brought her child there. The child was sent straight to the accident and emergency department to have its appendix removed because it was such an emergency. If the service in Blackpool had not been open at the time, the woman would have been obliged to travel across the city with her child. There would have been a delay in treatment as a result. Not only that, because the service in Blackpool is not operational, people are waiting hours not to get appointments but to be called back. The issue here is about clinical need.

Another gentleman contacted me to say that his wife is ill and that he had to take his daughter to SouthDoc. They live in Blarney. The Minister of State knows the area well. The man in question had to travel from Blarney to the Kinsale Road with his sick daughter and his sick wife. That is what happens when SouthDoc in Blackpool is closed. The gentleman has no car. The Government is encouraging people to use public transport, but there is no public transport to the Kinsale Road. It costs up to €80 to get a taxi there and back. The man to whom I refer explained the situation to me.

The people of the north side of Cork city want a guarantee that SouthDoc will be kept open and that there will be no more closures.

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