Reilly: Free GP care not abandoned

The under-fire health minister, who again faces calls for his resignation, has rejected suggestions that the Government is abandoning a plan to grant free GP care to people with long-term illnesses.

Conceding that they were “a little bit behind” — the deadline was Mar 2012 — Dr James Reilly said the Government had made no decision to abandon what has long been mooted as the first step in a four-step process leading, eventually, to free GP care for all.

However, while insisting they had “by no means decided not to go the long-term illness route”, he said Junior Health Minister Alex White has been tasked with seeking alternative ways of introducing free GP care on a phased basis.

Yesterday Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said 60,000 people who thought they were going to have free GP care were now being told that commitment has been abandoned.

“What actually has to happen for you to realise what your Cabinet colleagues privately acknowledge, and what the rest of the country has known and understood for quite some time, that Minister James Reilly is not the man to lead one of the most important departments in this country?” Mr Martin asked the Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

Mr Kenny said the Government remained fully committed to delivering free GP care for all. Mr White is due to report back to Cabinet at the end of this month, he told the Dáil.

Mr Reilly has repeatedly blamed legal difficulties in switching from an income-based system of assessment for entitlement to free GP care to a needs-based system for the long-running delays.

Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) general secretary Liam Doran described the development as “bad news” for health care. “Universal access to healthcare, whether that be a GP situation, primary care situation or a hospital situation, has to be the way forward. We are against the two-tier system in this country.”

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) said the Government had “wasted two years trying to achieve an impossible objective while ignoring a growing crisis in chronic patient care and GP services”. IMO GP committee chair Dr Ray Walley said what patients with long-term illnesses, such as diabetes, wanted and needed was “greater, structured resources at GP level to help them in the management of their chronic illnesses”.

Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said the health policy of the Government “is now in tatters”.

Separately it emerged yesterday that plans for a new €14m healthcare facility in north Co Dublin have been approved.