GPs ‘unwilling to take up posts’

YOUNG doctors are reluctant to take up GP posts in some rural areas, leading to a shortage of medical manpower for patients, the Irish Medical Organisation’s conference was told at the weekend.

A shortage of doctors is forcing some overworked GPs to close their practices to new patients for safety reasons, delegates also heard. Irish GPs are treating twice as many patients as their European colleagues.

But, it was pointed out, GPs themselves might be partly to blame for the manpower crisis, with younger GPs unwilling to take up vacant posts in some rural areas and preferring to move to urban centres.