"We get Ruairi Quinn, Carmencita Hederman, Pat Kenny - come Patrick's week and Easter and half of Dublin will be here. But what are big names to us when we still have no GP? We are howling at the moon!" The words of Phyllis O'Donoghue, a despairing secretary of Cashel Community Council in Connemara, as the search to find a doctor for Roundstone continues.
Roundstone? One of the Atlantic coast's little idylls? Surely any GP would give his or her life to be there? Not so, according to the Western Health Board, which has increased the salary on offer to try to tempt a qualified medical person to apply.
Inflated property prices in the area and the drift away from rural practices by GPs are cited for the almost complete lack of interest shown in the job since it became vacant last summer. Roundstone boasts "Dublin 4" house prices, with sites starting at £100,000. Add £80,000 to that for the cost of building, and there is no chance that a young couple starting out could settle there.
The health board advertised the post in August, and cover was provided by the incumbent in Carna until such time as a new GP could be found. But the selected candidate did not take it up, and the second-inline was already in employment by the time contact was made. The job was readvertised in December, but those interviewed in January wished to remain living elsewhere and commute.
As the weeks went by, the population of just under 1,000 in the greater Roundstone area began to suffer, according to Mrs O'Donoghue. "There have been long delays, a succession of locums . . . all of this has been causing untold stress, particularly to the elderly."
A meeting of the three community councils was held, and local politicians were contacted. The issue came up at a recent health board meeting in Galway, when a member, Castlerea GP Dr Greg Kelly, noted that the day of a 24-hour doctor was gone.
Cashel Community Council sent a petition containing 800 signatures to Dr Sheelah Ryan, Western Health Board chief executive officer, and a letter was sent to the Medical Council. "I wonder what would happen if there was a community of 1,000 people in the Minister for Health's constituency without a resident doctor," Mrs O'Donoghue says of the response.
"When Dr Marian Broderick was seeking an airstrip in Aran to facilitate taking her patients to Galway hospital, she was quoted as saying that if a minister of the government or a bishop had a cardiac arrest, she would succeed in her campaign. She did, but what will it take to get a doctor in Roundstone?" Mrs O'Donoghue asks.
The health board has said it is very concerned about filling the post and has recently re-advertised it. The proposed salary has been increased, locum cover has been guaranteed, and planning permission had been lodged to renovate the health centre, which badly needs upgrading, and to provide accommodation for a locum with it. But the board does require that the appointed GP lives in the area, the chief executive says.
House prices are a problem, the board acknowledges, and it notes that an increased proportion of GPs nationally are tending to take up assistant posts in practices, rather than opt for single-handed practices with the attendant responsibility and geographical distance to cover.
"The people of Roundstone do have 24-hour emergency care and three days a week local surgery service from an adjoining practice, but we are making every effort to recruit a fixed-term locum, pending the filling of the post on a permanent basis," the health board chief executive says.
