Clinics help bring marginalised into main health care

Hundreds of marginalised people, many living rough, are being brought into mainstream health care through two new clinics run by a Limerick doctor, one of which is held in a soup kitchen.

Fri, 13 Mar, 2015 - 00:00

Jimmy Woulfe - Mid-West Correspondent

Patrick O’Donnell runs his clinics two afternoons each week, one at St Vincent de Paul’s Ozanam House in Harstonge St, and the other at an Ana Liffey centre in Ballysimon.

Dr O’Donnell shares his experience with medical students at the University of Limerick, where he lectures on social inclusion issues, with the students also working with him at the clinics.

Since Dr O’Donnell began his HSE-funded clinics as a pilot project 12 months ago, he has brought up to 500 people ‘in from the cold’ with regards to health care.

“I deal with people who may be homeless, living in squats, finding it hard hold on to accommodation, sex workers, heroin addicts, people who have huge mental health problems, many who are suicidal, all of whom for one reason or another have no organised health care situations in place for themselves. They are people who don’t have access to the health system and health care. Some have literacy problems and can’t do the ordinary things like filling in forms to get medical cards.”

After assessing patients, he plots out a care plan liaising with GPs and the HSE.

“Sometimes I will see somebody who may be in need of urgent hospital care and I get them to hospital immediately. You have to come up with solutions for a whole variety of health problems, one that can’t just be solved with a prescription pad.

“Patients I see can suffer from mental health issues, and may be suicidal and suffering from the effects of heroin addiction. I see about 20 in the two clinics each week. Due to the nature of the problems, consultations, are usually much longer than a GP would usually have. I am not taking the place of the GP, but getting people connected to a GP.

“Word of mouth brings many to the clinics. Up to 150 people attend a soup kitchen run by Tom Flynn at the St Vincent de Paul at Ozanam Holuse on week days. A lot of them are now accessing regular health care.”

Dr O’Donnell said the fact many people who come to see him have heard about the clinics from other patients, was a great compliment.