A new doctors' co-operative is aiming to offset a growing staff crisis among rural GPs in the south-west. The co-op is one of the biggest in the State to offer out-of-hours primary care.
It will also offer patients in one of the most peripheral areas in Ireland a better, more speedy service, according to doctors.
South-West Doctors on Call Ltd is to be set up in the Southern Health Board region next year.
One hundred GPs will be involved initially, with others expected to join later, to cover a population of almost 200,000 in west Cork, and south and mid Kerry.
The co-op will cost about £1.5 million annually to run.
After 6 p.m. and at weekends, all patients in the region will be able to call a low-cost number linking them with a receptionist and a triage nurse who will establish patient needs.
A fleet of 10 fully equipped surgical cars will have designated drivers to ferry doctors. There will be one main call centre co-ordinating activity, possibly in Killarney.
The co-op will have the services of fully equipped ambulances. A full-time nurse and at least five GPs will be on duty, as distinct from merely on call, at any one time in Kerry alone.
Nurses at a hospital in Mayo intend to implement a work-to-rule starting this morning.
SIPTU nurses at Swinford district hospital threatened the action over the non-payment by the management board of the increased location allowance of £1,100 a year.
Prior to the national nurses' dispute last January, the local allowance was worth £333 but has now risen to £1,100. Nurses at Swinford district hospital have been in receipt of the £333 allowance, but the increase, backdated to August 1998, has not been paid to them.