Simon Harris told Laois people are waiting weeks to see GP

The low and falling family doctors in Laois and Offaly is resulting in clogged hospital emergency departments and patients waiting weeks to get GP appointments, according to Sinn Féin's Laois Offaly TD.

Speaking in the Dáil, Dep Brian Stanley raised what he claims is “the shockingly low number of GPs per head of population in Laois and Offaly’’ with Taoiseach Simon Harris.

“I raised the commitment in the Programme for Government with regard to improving primary care services. There is a chronic shortage of GPs in Laois and Offaly. There are 37 practising GPs in Laois, which is one for every 2,483 of the population. Five have resigned in the past two years and four have retired, which is a loss of nine," he said.

He also flagged the situation in Offaly where he said there are 31 practising GPs, which breaks down to 2,683 of the population to each GP, and there has been a loss of four in the past two years.

Dep Stanley said the Irish Medical Organisation ecommends that it should be one GP for every 833 of population, but it is generally accepted that it should be approximately 1,000 per GP.

"We can see that in both of those counties, there is more than 2.5 times the number of people per GP than there should be. It is becoming a real problem, especially in rural but also in urban areas.

“It is taking weeks to get appointments and it is difficult to get enrolled with a GP or get accepted at a practice. The result is that people are clogging up emergency departments because that is where they are going for GP services. We need to train, recruit and retain more GPs," he said.

He urged action.

"The shortage of GPs has now reached crisis points and this is an issue I will pursue until Laois and Offaly has adequate GP cover for all of our people here,’’ said the TD.

Dep Stanley claimed the Taoiseach, who is a former Minister for Health, could not respond to the points I made but instead committed to asking the Minister for Health to respond.