There are acute shortages of GPs in commuter belts and in rural areas, according to the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP).<\/p>\n
It said that while doctor numbers are expanding, the GPs available cannot meet current patient needs.<\/p>\n
ICGP Medical Director Dr Diarmuid Quinlan said there are three clearly defined deficits in patients’ access to GPs.<\/p>\n
Speaking on RT\u00c9’s Today with David McCullagh, Dr Quinlan said: “We know rural and remote communities firstly have difficulty accessing GPs.”<\/p>\n
Dr Quinlan said urban deprived groups like inner-city Dublin and other inner-city areas have “substantially elevated” healthcare needs.<\/p>\n
He added that the third group is those living in the commuter belt due to strong and sustained housing development, proving challenging for patients living there to access a GP on a timely basis.<\/p>\n
“Most patients have ready access to a GP,” he said, adding that GPs and their nurses do about 29 million consultations per year, equating to 100,000 per day.<\/p>\n
He said Monaghan has about 50 GPs for 100,000 people, half the national target of 100 GPs.<\/p>\n
Dr Quinlan said Meath and Kilkenny have around 60 GPs per 100,000. He added that the cities are a “magnet for doctors”, making it difficult for those living in rural parts of Ireland.<\/p>\n
He said Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Cork have the highest ratio of GPs per 100,000.<\/p>\n
However, he said there is a rural disparity in these counties in accessing a GP.<\/p>\n
Dr Quinlan said the biggest challenge is the expansion of the population. “Our GP workforce hasn\u2019t kept pace with that,” he said.<\/p>\n
He also said that the population is aging, there is still a fallout from Covid-19 and there is an aging GP workforce. “There are lots of issues and challenges,” he said.<\/p>\n
At the end of 2024, there were about 4,600 GPs and by the end of last year, that number reached 4,900.<\/p>\n
Dr Quinlan said Ireland needs in excess of 6,000 GPs to keep pace with the population.<\/p>\n
He said he would encourage young doctors to look on general practice as a specialty which is “very demanding” and “very rewarding “and a “great career opportunity”.<\/p>\n
People in rural areas ‘presenting at emergency departments’<\/p>\n
Chair of the Irish Farmers’ Association’s Farm Family and Social Affairs Committee Teresa Roche said there is a huge differentiation with accessibility to GP appointments in rural and farming communities.<\/p>\n
“In rural and remote areas, there have been delays in getting appointments, even a delay of up to two weeks in advance of booking an appointment,” she said.<\/p>\n
Ms Roche stressed that farming communities do not know two weeks in advance what is happening on farms.<\/p>\n
She said people may have to travel between “20km to 30km” to get to a GP in these areas.<\/p>\n
“Low income is a hindrance which can lead to delayed diagnosis, treatment or presentations,” Ms Roche said.<\/p>\n
Those in rural areas are “presenting themselves at emergency departments” due to being unable to get a GP appointment, she added.<\/p>\n
On how to tackle the shortage, she said community-led healthcare will help prevent illness in rural and farming communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are acute shortages of GPs in commuter belts and in rural areas, according to the Irish College…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-716509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}