Call for inquiry as patients travelling 24km for out-of-hours GP service

Concerns have been raised in a large east Cork town about the availability of the out-of-hours SouthDoc service.

A local councillor in Youghal is seeking what she described as “an urgent inquiry” following complaints from dozens of constituents that people have to travel 24km to Midleton to avail of the service.

Cllr Mary Linehan-Foley said there was no justification for Youghal “effectively having no doctor service after 6pm and at weekends” despite a HSE-funded facility being opened a mile from the town centre last July.

She first aired her frustration on Facebook after her a member of her own family had to travel, over Christmas, in the early hours to Midleton.

She admitted to being stunned when her post sparked dozens more grievances about the service.

“People are still sending in stories, ringing me and even handing me letters over the situation,” she says.

Her council colleague, Cllr Tara O’Connell, says she too had received “numerous” “complaints.

“Some of the accounts are very frightening,” she says.

One woman described how her six-week-old niece had to be brought to Midleton with a chest infection before being immediately brought to a Cork hospital and then rushed to Dublin, during which journey she stopped breathing for a period.

Others reportedly asked to travel to Midleton include:

* A husband whose wife was drifting in and out of consciousness;

* A young woman asked to travel by taxi with a friend suffering an asthma attack;

* A single mother-of-two, whose two year-old was “shivering uncontrollably” and had a very high temperature. The child was diagnosed with tonsillitis, a chest infection and an eye infection;

* A man with a heart condition suffering severe pains down his left arm. He was told to drive to Midleton himself, if necessary;

* A woman suffering a chronic asthma attack.

Cllr Linehan-Foley said that some people requiring a doctor don’t have their own transport and “this places unfair responsibility on neighbours and friends” to drive them.

SouthDoc previously saw patients by appointment at a base on the grounds of Youghal District Hospital.

Last April, SouthDoc said the service would “shortly” transfer to a new unit at Millennium Court, yet patients claim they are inevitably asked to travel to Midleton.