ShannonDoc insists the curtailment of services in West and North Clare has had no knock on impact on other services.
A public meeting is taking place in Kilrush this evening, a year after ShannonDoc’s controversial changes to the county’s out-of-hours GP services, with campaigners calling for full resinstatement.
But the GP co-op says numbers attending clinics have dropped as Clare FM’s Derrick Lynch reports:
Health Services in West Clare have been described as being like those of a third world country, by campaigners calling for services to be reinstated.
It’s a year since the Kilrush/Ennistymon services relocated to Miltown Malbay on weekdays, while the Killaloe centre has been serviced by a mobile doctor.
Deirdre Culligan of West Clare Saving Lives believes the Government has been happy to ignore the needs of people who feel they have too far to travel for the service.
The campaign group is now calling on Clare’s Oireachtas members to work together to bring full out of hours doctor services back to the county.
Aoife Taylor says local residents are just as scared now as they were a year ago over the reduced services.
But ShannonDoc continues to defend the move, saying there has been no impact on other services within the local health service.
They say there has been a 7% decrease in numbers attending the service co-op wide and a 13% drop in West and North Clare.
Chairman Pat Morrissey says he’s happy that they’re still providing a safe and accessible service within the remit of the resources they have – but he’s also hitting out over the level of support from politicians.
