The knock-on effect of the strike was felt by GPs in the Dublin and Cork areas yesterday, with many predicting that the situation would worsen as the strike deepens.
Most GPs said they had dealt with patients who would normally be treated by hospital out-patient services or public health nurses.
The doctors said they expected their workloads to increase later this week as they take on the time consuming work of public health nurses, such as changing wound dressings for patients at home.
One Lucan GP said his surgery was not inundated yesterday but he predicted this was "the calm before the storm".
Dr Eugene O'Connor, who has a practice in the north inner city, said his workload was up by between 15 and 20 per cent in the last two days.
He said he had to hire extra secretarial staff yesterday to cope with the increased volume. He treated four patients yesterday with sutures who would normally have attended hospitals. There had also been an increased demand for house calls to fill in for the work of public health nurses.
"GPs can, hopefully, cope with the added work but there will come a point when it's not feasible to follow on," he said.
A GP in a Blackrock practice treated a 12-year-old boy with a learning disability who had fallen and cut his head, requiring one stitch. Dr John Fleetwood advised that the boy be sent to hospital after receiving a phone call from his special school. The boy went to the accident and emergency department of St Michael's hospital, Dun Laoghaire, accompanied by a nurse.
Sister Mary Leahy, a member of the hospital's strike committee, said the boy was seen by a sister who explained that he would be treated, but that there would be "a considerable delay".
Sister Leahy stressed that the boy was never refused treatment or asked to return to the GP. The nurse who accompanied him was happy for him to return to Dr Fleetwood instead of waiting. She said the boy was not in an acute emergency situation and was not in distress.
Dr Fleetwood, who works in a three-doctor practice, said he had been given a list of about 13 patients who would require their dressings changed once or twice a week, vital work performed by public health nurses.
"For the first day we appear to be coping, but the ability to cope will rapidly deteriorate over the next few days," he said.
Dr James Reilly, who works in practices in Lusk and Donabate in north Co Dublin, said there was "a definite gradual increase in workload and a degree of anxiety building up out there".
Dr Reilly, who is also a GP spokesman for the Irish Medical Organisation, said patient care would be compromised as the strike continued.
"There will be a lot of suffering as a consequence of long delays, which will be mostly in the acute hospitals, but will seep into practices, and that's not in the interest of patient care."
He appealed to the public to look out for elderly neighbours and also urged all parties to resolve the dispute.
Dr Jim Keely, a partner in a three-doctor practice in Malahide, said he had dealt with a woman on an ante-natal visit who said the hospital had told her to have a blood test carried out by her GP.
Dr Keely said he had received no information from any hospital regarding blood tests and did not even know which tests to carry out. The private patient, who would previously have had the blood test free of charge, would now have to pay for it.
He said if GPs were inundated with additional blood tests and dressings they would have to do such work outside normal surgery hours.
"Our workload will increase because people will be coming to us for blood tests, and no one has notified us at all that the patients will come here. It's just the fact that there's an assumption that GPs will pick up the workload and carry on as if nothing has happened," he added.
Dr Keely said he saw patients yesterday who were "concerned and asking us: `What would happen if . . ?' Our main concern is how long the strike is going to go on and that the people who need looked after will be looked after."
Dr Ronan Gleeson, a GP in Cork who operates clinics in both the south and north sides of the city, said it was too early for doctors to predict how busy they might become because of the strike.
However, he did say that the number of people coming to his two surgeries for dressings and routine treatment appeared to have increased.