The Irish College of General Practitioners has repeated a warning that Ireland is going to facing a worsening shortage of GPs as more retire in the coming years.
The organisation was responding to concerns in Ardara in Co Donegal where the local GP Dr Mireille Sweeney is retiring next week after 29 years service to the community.
Local TDs have expressed concern that there is still no successor in place.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, spokesman Prof Liam Glynn said the situation in Ardara was not uncommon and it was something being faced by a lot of communities.
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More than a quarter of GPs are aged 60 and over, so this issue is going to become more prevalent in rural communities, he said.
“We really need to start to focus on what are the short, medium and long-term solutions to try and solve some of these problems,” he said.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of people are working hard in the background, the local stakeholders, the HSE, the Irish College of General Practitioners I know has put a huge amount of work into this, performing a new national standing committee and recently appointing a rural lead, because we all are recognising that these are serious problems coming down the line. And we need to be all working together to try and solve these problems.”
Prof Glynn acknowledged that there were difficulties in attracting a younger generation of GPs into rural practice.
“We need to do everything we can to make these posts attractive to a younger generation of GPs,” he said. “In terms of the main support that rural practices get, it is the rural practice support framework. And that is due for renegotiation this year between the Government and the Irish Medical Organisation which represent us as doctors.”
One of the primary fears that young doctors have going into a local practice was getting locum cover, he said, citing a recent survey that showed a third of GPs said they could not take annual leave because they could not find cover.
“For any profession, if one third of its workers can’t get coverage to go on holidays, very soon people are going to leave that profession,” he said.
“We need to train more GPs. We need to make sure that the new strategic task force in general practice has a laser like focus on more general practice and to try and address the problems that we’re having there.”
Prof Glynn cited a recent situation in Co Clare where a post of GP in a local practice was advertised three times but there were no applicants.
“In fairness to the HSE locally in the Midwest, they funded what we’ve called the Rural Fellowship programme,” he said.
“And suddenly when that was attached to the practice, there was three applicants and now the post is being filled.
“Provided the will is there and the resources are there, there are ways to try and support older GPs in practice who are moving towards retirement and attracting new GPs into practice. But there’s a couple of key problems that have to be solved and one of them is definitely around locum cover.”
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