Travellers are forced to access hospital care through accident and emergency units because GPs refuse to take them as patients, research by the Traveller Health Unit in the Eastern Region has found.
The study of the use of hospital services by Travellers has shown that all patients in the region were admitted through casualty only, and none was referred by a GP or consultant. Seventy per cent of all Traveller out-patients were referred by a casualty department.
"Travellers aren't accessing hospitals through GPs because the majority of GPs refuse to take them on as patients," said another member of the health unit, Ms Ronnie Fay.
A survey in the 1995 Task Force Report on the Travelling Community found that "GPs tend to be reluctant to accept Travellers as registered patients because of fear that to treat them will result in loss of other patients and because of their high consultation rate".
Other findings also show a marked divergence in hospital use and general health between Travellers and the settled community.
Twelve times more Traveller children die from cot death than babies in settled families, and only 3 per cent of Travellers who use acute general hospitals are over 65 years old.