Health Minister 'must knock heads together' to prevent 'unthinkable' lack of GP cover demands Laois TD

The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly must directly intervene and find away to ensure more than 300,000 people living in the Midland counties have a 24/7 out of hours GP service beyond January 15.

That is the demand made by Laois Offaly Fine Gael TD Charlie Flanagan who said it is 'unthinkable' that people living in Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath might not be able to access GP care at weekends or at nights beyond the middle of January.

With little or no beds available in Midlands hospital, the Fine Gael TD made the call after the HSE confirmed that it had an arrangement in place with a third party agency to deliver a service to up to January 15. This is contrary to previous political statements that there is a more secure bridging agreement in place with local GPs to fill the gap after doctors pulled the plug on Midoc GP Company Limited by Guarantee.

Dep Flanagan said the reality is that the HSE is simply underwriting the service but more must be done as there is 'no agreement' after January 15. He insisted that Minister Donnelly must step.

"It's unthinkable that the HSE would walk away and leave up to 300,000 people without weekend cover. The Minister must knock heads together," said the TD who revealed on Christmas Eve that that Midoc CLG was winding up.

The HSE said on January 3 that nothing has changed since December 23 when it confirmed that Midoc GP CLG would cease to trade from January 1 due to financial challenges.

While the HSE funds the operation of much of the service, it outsourced the provision of doctors to Midoc GP CLG which is owned by doctors. It was set up in 2002 when similar services were set up around Ireland.

The HSE said in its latest statement that it is working to ensure that the interim solution will be extended to facilitate discussions on a long term solution.

"The HSE will provide ongoing updates as we support the GPs and members of the public due to the untimely departure of MIDOC GP CLG,'' it said on January 3.

It had been claimed that the local GPs had been in talks with HSE and the Irish Medical Organisation to find short term and long term solutions. 

Midoc GP CLG has issued no statement about the situation so the Leinster Express / Laois Live contacted the IMO which represents thousands of GPs around Ireland. It would not reveal why Midoc GP CLG ceased trading or why did negotiations fail to reach an agreement that would have secured its future.

It declined to say if the HSE refusing to meet the financial requirements of GPs to deliver the service through the company. It also would not say what, if any are the specific challenges faced by GPs in the Midlands in delivering out of hours care

As for its involvement in talks, the IMO would only confirm that: "On behalf of GPs, it engaged with the HSE to ensure arrangements were in place to support the delivery of the GP out of hours services".

Midoc operational but prognosis for out-of-hours GP service not clear

It would make no other comment.

The HSE said in the run up to Christmas that people should avoid attending hospital Emergency Departments if at all possible. It urged people in the Midlands to use Midoc services as one of the alternatives.

On January 3, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation confirmed that there were 37 people on trollies at hospitals in the Midlands. There were 20 at Mullingar hospital, 12 on trollies in Portlaoise and five in the Tullamore hospital.

Covid-19 figures from hospitals for January 7 show that there were 34 patients with Covid-19 spread across the three hospitals in the Midoc catchement area. Tullamore hospital had 23  patients with the virus while Portlaoise had 6 and Mullingar had five confirmed cases. 

None of the three hospitals had any ICU beds while just two general beds were available in the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise as  of 8am on Monday, January 2.

Call on HSE to hire its own doctors to replace defunct Midoc out-of-hours service

Laois Offaly TD Brian Stanley has called on the HSE to end the public private way of running out-of-hours GP care in the midlands and instead hire its own doctors.