GP care: Patients attending a dilapidated health centre in Ballymun, Dublin were left without access to family doctors and public health nurses last week after the building was closed on health and safety grounds.
A replacement health centre remains empty because of a disagreement between the Department of Health and the local health board over funding for a fit-out and ongoing rental costs.
The Irish Times was contacted by frustrated general practitioners who said patient care had been compromised because of a permanent lack of heating and a second major power failure within a month.
Doctors have been forced to abandon baby clinics, where parents bring six-week-old children for post-natal check-ups under the Mother and Child Scheme, because of low temperatures in the health centre.
A 35-year-old woman with an acute asthma attack was unable to complete emergency treatment with drugs given by inhaled nebulizer because of the power failure, Dr Bríd Hollywood said. She confirmed that the electricity supply had also failed on Tuesday of last week, with the result that doctors had no access to patient records, all of which are computerised.
"I am concerned that clinical mistakes could arise because of this," she said.
Another family doctor practising at Ballymun health centre said: "The building has been past its sell by date for some time."
Dr David Gibney said the centre had been closed twice in the past month, denying him access to his patients. "We were forced to put a note on the door advising people to attend local accident and emergency units."
According to a local woman who went to see her GP in Ballymun on Wednesday, she and her 10-year-old daughter, both of whom had respiratory complaints, waited two and a quarter hours in "freezing cold conditions".
"The doctor came out in tears and apologised to us and a medical student had to give her jacket to my daughter."
The woman confirmed people were locked outside the health centre, unable to access medical care.
A spokesman for the Northern Area Health Board (NAHB) said the ongoing heating problems had triggered the power cuts when individual electrical heaters were plugged in.
"A part for the heating system had to be sourced in Denmark and our technical services people worked over the weekend to repair it. The engineers are happy that the system is back working."
He said that representatives of Ballymun Regeneration Limited, the Department of Health and the NAHB were due to meet "shortly" to discuss a financial package that should allow the new health centre in Ballymun to open.