Flood of prison requests for GPs

MORE than 2,000 requests to see a doctor have been lodged by prisoners and there have been 200 referrals to accident and emergency departments since the start of the prison strike seven weeks ago.

Prison officials also allege the doctors have withdrawn emergency cover since army medical personnel began seeing prisoners at the end of May, a claim denied by the Irish Medical Organisation.

The 2200 requests to see a doctor does not include new inmates who would normally be examined within 24 hours of admission, the Prison Service last night.

A spokesman described the 200 referrals to A&E as a huge increase. The army doctors are only in the Dublin prisons for a limited number of hours every day and nursing staff have to deal with most referrals at first instance.

“If in doubt, they go to the hospital,” the prison service spokesman said. The hospital visits are costing a large amount of money, as each has to be escorted by staff.

Problems are particularly acute in Dublin, Limerick and Castlerea, though Cork Prison appears to be managing better.

The prison doctors, who pulled back from resigning en masse after the army doctors were called in, are deeply critical of what they describe as the prison service’s refusal to get involved in substantive talks.

While the issue of pay is central, the doctors also want reform of the prison medical service as recommended in a report published four years ago.

Medical staff believe there is a chronic lack of support services, particularly psychiatric.

The Prison Service claims the doctors have spurned talks at the Labour Court, but the IMO says General Practitioners are contractors and have never had access to the Labour Court.

The IMO’s Finbar Murphy said: “There has not been any new approach from the beginning of the strike.”