Out-of-hours GP services in Cork and Kerry to reopen

Southdoc services in Blackpool and Listowel closed at the start of the pandemic, leaving large areas without a dedicated out-of-hours GP service

The Southdoc centres in Blackpool and Listowel are to reopen in the coming days. File picture: Eddie O'Hare

Out-of-hours GP services which closed in Cork and Kerry at the start of the pandemic are to reopen, the HSE has confirmed.

Southdoc Blackpool, in the north of Cork city and Southdoc Listowel in Co Kerry, are now set to reopen on Monday.

Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould, who has been campaigning to have the centres reopen, welcomed the reversal of the closure.

Vulnerable families had been forced to walk for miles across Cork city at night with sick children or pay an expensive taxi fare to access the only open SouthDoc centre off the Kinsale Road Roundabout in the southside, which is only easily accessed by car.

Mr Gould said: “The people of the northside desperately need this facility, especially in the middle of a pandemic. Taxis and travelling across the city are not viable for people and indeed pose unsafe barriers to healthcare.

“The HSE themselves warned that this closure posed a serious risk to unnecessary hospital presentations. This is extremely important given the vulnerable positions our Cork hospitals now find themselves in.

“I am delighted that Southdoc will reopen on Monday, January 18. This is a tremendous victory for the people of the northside. Over 1,200 people signed my petition and many left heartfelt comments on why they felt the facility needed to remain on the northside.

“It is clear now to the government, the HSE and Southdoc themselves that the people of the northside need healthcare and they cannot continue to be forgotten.

“I am hopeful that today’s announcement will ease the anxiety and stress people have been under. People across the northside can now access out-of-hours doctor’s services again and that is extremely welcome news.” 

Last month, Mr Gould received correspondences through a Freedom of Information request in which Southdoc informed the HSE that it did not plan to reopen the Blackpool centre in Cork city or the Listowel centre in Kerry.

The Cork TD had called for the services to reopen immediately, believing that a failure to do so would be in breach of the Service Level Agreement between the HSE and Southdoc, which is worth more than €7m annually.

In October, the HSE told Southdoc, a private company, that a failure to reopen the centres would pose “a serious risk to the unnecessary presentations to the acute hospital” and was unacceptable.

Southdoc replied that a shortage of doctors in Listowel made reopening the centre there untenable, while in "Cork city doctors are working more effectively from a single treatment centre" and operating a “safer model for all concerned.”

But new correspondence from the HSE’s Cork Kerry Community Healthcare, which has a contract with SouthDoc to provide out-of-hours GP services to medical card holders in Cork and Kerry, said it “has been advised by SouthDoc Management that the centre at Blackpool will be reopened and available to patients as required and by appointment from mid-January 2021.” 

It continued: “Their current planned operational date is the week commencing 18.01.2021 and they committed to contacting the HSE if there is any change to that plan due to Covid related issues.”