'Not enough medical staff' for free under-eight care, say GPs

A study carried out by Trinity College Dublin three years after the introduction of free GP care for under-sixes found 45% of additional visits to GPs and 73% of extra visits to out-of-hours services were for children in this age group. File picture

Free GP care for more children, while welcome, could limit access to treatment for other patients, the GP representative body has said.

The budget includes a planned expansion of free GP care to children aged six and seven, although a timeframe was not laid out. A similar programme for under-sixes started in 2015 and had been planned to reach under-12s within a year.

Dr Denis McCauley, chair of the GP Committee of the Irish Medical Organisation, cautiously welcomed this, saying the IMO negotiating team planned to meet on Wednesday night.

“In an ideal situation, that would be wonderful but the problem is we are not in an ideal situation,” he said. “We don’t actually have enough medical personnel, doctors or nurses to facilitate that.” 

He expects negotiations to begin shortly, but could not say when parents might see the results.

“We would like Government to understand that really capacity is the issue here,” he said.

They have to realise you can’t just keep giving out medical cards, but if you do you are actually worsening the system of care for the rest of the population including the person getting the medical card.” 

A study carried out by Trinity College Dublin three years after the introduction of free GP care for under sixes found 45% of additional visits to GPs and 73% of extra visits to out-of-hours services were for children in this age group.

The free care project is part of an agreement with GPs to reverse recession-era funding cuts, and Dr McCauley said: “We will stand by our word.” 

Free contraception

He also welcomed the planned introduction of free contraception for women aged 17 to 25 from August.

He said: “I would think free contraceptive advice, prescription and monitoring would be an ideal system, but once again it has to be practical. It has to be put in the context that there are not enough hours in the day for GPs to do [all of this].” 

A group of Munster GPs, the Southern Taskgroup on Abortion and Reproductive Topics (Start), said they were looking forward to working with the Government on this.

“As GPs, we have seen first-hand how the cost of contraception has proved to be a barrier to accessing contraception, in particular the highly-effective long acting reversible contraception,” said Cork GP Dr Aine Murphy.

“This will be a huge step towards addressing the current anomaly where abortion care is provided free of charge but preventative contraception is not.” 

Covid-19 booster campaign

Meanwhile, the Covid-19 booster campaign for the over-80s continues in GP practices, and for people over 65 living in residential facilities.

Dr McCauley said: “The over-80s are delighted to come in, it is a good idea to give the flu and Covid vaccines together. There is the same positive feeling as in February, and hopefully, it will enhance their immune systems.” 

He has found, however, this group are not as aware of the booster programme as they were of the first vaccinations, and noted that local and national publicity campaigns could be improved.