Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Today I raise the issue of the crisis that is the shortage of general practitioners, GPs, throughout this country. It is an issue I have raised in this Chamber many times, and I refer to and compliment the work recently done by The Sunday Business Post, which conducted a survey of GPs throughout the country to ascertain the extent of the problem. The results of that survey showed that 64% of GPs surveyed have now closed their doors to new patients. What does that mean? In County Monaghan, in both Carrickmacross and Monaghan town, GPs have closed their doors to new patients completely. I encountered a young couple who returned home with their two children to set up life again in County Monaghan. They approached every GP in the town and none would take them on. Where are these people meant to go? I can only imagine how stressful that is with two young children. They have now been told to approach doctors on call. That is the only option available to them. The doctor on call service is now so overwhelmed that it has capped the number of patients not registered with GPs who will be seen. That cohort includes this family. This is a very serious situation and it has been allowed to get worse under the Government's watch. I ask the Leader to call the Minister for Health before the Seanad to advise Members and the people as to what he is doing to address this serious issue.

The reality is that if someone gets sick he or she cannot go to his or her GP. Now we find that such people cannot go to a doctor on call service. Where will they end up? They will end up queueing, like everybody else, in accident and emergency departments. It is simply not good enough. Everyone knows that the GP is the first line of defence when someone gets sick. We talk about promoting primary care in order that we have a properly functioning system that alleviates the problems in accident and emergency departments. Here is a serious problem that needs to be addressed.