Ireland has been well served by their single-handed family doctors for generations, and the continuity of care has been second to none, and its great benefit proven by hard research.
The ongoing difficulty is that single- handed GP practices are disappearing fast and inner city and more rural areas are more likely to continue to fail to attract or retain a permanent GP. The reasons are well known including difficulty taking statutory leave due to lack of locums, burnout and the responsibility of running a practice.
The inordinate effects post FEMPI on rural practice and the general inability of single- handed GP’s to benefit from the well – intentioned International Medical Graduate Programme (due to an inability to fund the second GP) means there is no real help in immediate sight for the single-handed GP struggling to hold on in their practice, and for those areas struggling to recruit/ retain a permanent GP. The situation is going to get worse.
Yet rural areas and inner- city areas are every bit as deserving, and even more so, of a permanent GP, but filling that practice is becoming even more unlikely to happen. Rural practice supports have not increased in proportion to the capitation increases of recent years, likewise with the DMO salary, dispensing fees and the rural practice allowance. Supporting rural GPs to stay in place through more equitable financial support would make great sense and help keep more people out of A & E and hospital wards. The RIDDI 2 for 1 would be a good investment for government, where the funding of a second GP by the State would ensure that each GP gets to take his/ her statutory leave and rural areas such as Mulranny or the islands off our shore would have a second GP to support older people to stay and be looked after locally. That way the local people get to keep their GP and more older people get to remain locally, and be looked after locally, rather than ending up in a hospital or a faraway nursing home. The RIDDI 2 for one is now IMO policy since 2023.
Dr Jerry Cowley,
Mulranny, Co Mayo