MEDICAL CARD patients and children due childhood vaccinations are among those who may suffer from a significant withdrawal of services currently provided by family doctors if a planned reduction in fees and allowances goes ahead, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has said.
In a submission to be presented to the Department of Health next Friday, the doctors’ union says that services such as taking blood tests, monitoring patients who are taking the blood-thinning drug Warfarin and providing wound and ulcer dressings, “currently delivered on a pro bono basis may have to be discontinued or alternatively GMS (medical card) patients will have to be charged for the provision of such services”.
The IMO says providing these services depends on having adequate nursing and secretarial staff, and that if allowances currently paid to GPs enabling them to employ practice staff are subject to a planned 8 per cent reduction in professional fees by Government, many doctors may be forced to reduce staff hours and in some cases make nurses and administrators redundant.
"If the Government was to reduce these allowances in addition to reducing fees, individual GP practices will be faced with a choice between reducing costs on staff and other items of major expenditure, or sustaining falls in income of much greater than the 8 per cent proposed," Dr Ronan Boland, chairman of the IMO GP committee, told The Irish Timesyesterday.
Family doctors provide childhood immunisations under a separate contract agreed with the Health Service Executive (HSE). The primary childhood immunisation programme provides vaccination against diseases such as polio, whooping cough, meningitis, mumps and measles. “Any reduction in fees payable under the primary childhood immunisation scheme may threaten the future viability of this vitally important public healthcare programme,” the IMO submission states.
In an analysis of staffing arrangements in general practice, the IMO says that if practices have to reduce front-line staff, it will reduce the availability of vital services to local communities. “Practices may have to restrict the access of existing patients to services, transfer some care back to the local hospital infrastructure and may be unable to accept new patients who move into an area.”
The document also lists the national cervical cancer screening programme as one that could come under threat as a result of staff cutbacks. Methadone treatment facilities for drug addicts could also be jeopardised. It also warns that the planned expansion of primary care teams in the community, a key plank in health service reform, could be hit.
General practitioners from around the country gathered at a closed meeting at Croke Park yesterday for a briefing by IMO officers and officials.