Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach. I want to bring up the HSE service plan and Westdoc. Westdoc provides GP cover and many people around the country would know that this service comes in under different names in different regions. It provides out-of-hours and red-eye cover. That is, out-of-hours between 5 o’clock and 6 o’clock in the evening until 12 o’clock at night and then red-eye cover from midnight until about 6 o’clock or 7 o’clock in the morning. The challenge is that in east Galway - I know are other parts of Galway are affected as Senator Kyne has mentioned his area of Moycullen - there is no cover in the towns of Ballinasloe, Kilconnell, Laurencetown and Kiltormer. The GPs in those towns are not included in Westdoc. Representations have been made in respect of the HSE service plan to include this region. I would hope to bring this up and would very much like to have an opportunity to potentially talk about health prior to the budget with the Minister for Health. How are we going to ensure we have GPs and that we recruit and retain them, particularly when so many of them are young women with families, and to attract them then to live in regional areas where they have to travel, have more nights on than off, and do not fall under the Working Time Directive.

In other words, if they work a night on duty, they are working again at 9 o’clock the following morning. We already have about ten vacancies in the west for GPs. This is very significant. At the moment the HSE is paying out for locums to deliver this service when we should have GPs in our local areas.

This is a serious issue which has been brought forward in respect of the HSE service plan, but it was not implemented this year. We need to look at how we can do that next year but also look at the areas in the west. The Deputy Leader will be aware that in her region, we also need to look at incentives for GPs.

What will those incentives be? I am aware that the HSE is looking at how we can put forward incentives via per capitapayments but we need to look at how we are doing that in the west. We do not have the GPs. They are not coming to live in rural areas where they have to work a night on, a night off, then again at 9 o’clock in the morning and have to travel an hour, if not two hours, to their nearest patient. We need to have a discussion on this issue.