GENERAL PRACTITIONERS:A 32-MONTH wait by a woman with suspected rheumatoid arthritis to see a specialist in a public hospital has been condemned by her doctor as "health apartheid".
Speaking at the annual meeting of the Irish Medical Organisation on Saturday, Cork GP Dr Ciarán Donovan said waiting times to see certain specialists in Cork public hospitals had deteriorated significantly in the last two years.
He said that patients with orthopaedic, gynaecological and neurological problems faced delays that were at their worst level in the 25 years he had been practising as a family doctor.
Dr Donovan said the family of an elderly patient of the practice were recently forced to pay for him to have a joint replacement carried out at a private hospital in Dublin, even though he was theoretically entitled to free hospital care. Doctors in Cork are also concerned that women with gynaecological symptoms that could indicate the presence of a cancer are having difficulty being assessed urgently in the public system.
Another Cork GP told The Irish Timesof a recent case of a man who was bleeding from his back passage – a potential sign of bowel cancer – and who was offered a colonoscopy appointment in a public hospital some six months later. When the patient was referred to a private facility the man was assessed in three weeks. The patient was subsequently diagnosed with bowel cancer and is presently recovering from surgery to remove the tumour. "Even though the original letter [to the public hospital] was clearly urgent, it has now got to the point where a GP must contact a consultant in person to have a patient seen in the appropriate time," the doctor said.
Dr Donovan told the meeting that such was the level of apartheid in the health system it was time for private hospitals and private clinics to display signs saying “no poor people need apply”.
A number of motions passed by the meeting were critical of the slow pace of development of primary care teams. Dr Martin White, a GP in Nobber, Co Meath, asked the media to challenge the HSE to name the locations of the supposedly functioning teams and to ask how active each one is.
Dr Donovan said his practice has been part of a primary care team for over three years but said the team of 13 GPs, practice nurses, physiotherapists and dieticians has met just once for a “meet and greet” but had not come together since.
Meanwhile, the meeting endorsed a call for the public to be warned that the health system was unsafe following the closure of services in smaller hospitals. Dr David Moloney, a GP in Mallow, Co Cork said: “We need to say to the public at large that in an emergency we will not be able to save their lives.
“You cannot remove a service and replace it with nothing,” he said in reference to the failure of the HSE to engage with GPs in planning replacement health services.
Referring to recent changes at Ennis General Hospital, Co Clare GP Michael Kelleher said: “We have had a done deal foisted upon us. It is going to get far worse in the coming weeks.”