Migrant inf lux creates major GP supply issue
Minister cannot ensure doctor numbers will keep up in all areas
THE Health Minister has admitted it will be ‘more difficult’ to ensure there are GPs in areas with high levels of refugees.
The Cabinet subcommittee on migration met this week to discuss a new €50million community fund to support the country’s ten most affected districts after the recent immigration surge.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has previously said the Cabinet is looking at ways to increase resources for the districts that have accommodated the most refugees and asylum seekers, with a particular focus on health, education and justice.
However, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said that because GPs are not directly employed by the HSE, ‘it is more difficult’ to deploy them to locations where the population has risen due to migration.
‘We don’t employ GPs and therefore it is more difficult. You have to work with the GPs to kind of create a situation that they want to move into,’ he said. Mr Donnelly said the Cabinet subcommittee has been examining proposals, as has his department.
He commented: ‘Let’s identify what the gap is, where the pressure is, and respond case by case to that. I don’t think it’s a onesize-fits-all package. The traditional response from healthcare services is that the GP market is a private market, they – the GPs – go where they want to go, which is true, but that can’t be the end of the conversation.’
He said the Irish College of General Practitioners has a scheme attracting international doctors to work in rural or inner-city areas with a greater need for them.
He said he is ‘open to employing GPs through the HSE’, though ‘GPs tend to enjoy working the way that they currently work.’
He said ‘virtual clinics’ could be a possible solution and are used in other countries. ‘It is important to say on GPs, we’ve had a huge increase in the number of training places. We’ve gone from 120 to 350 now this year,’ he said.
Senior ministers are understood to have discussed several proposals at the Cabinet subcommittee on migration this week. The Taoiseach said that while the subcommittee was initially established to deal with issues relating to Ukraine, it has become more akin to a ‘migration’ committee.
Minister for Education Norma Foley said there was a need to increase capital spending on education to deal with the increased stress levels placed on the system due to the high number of child
‘Virtual clinics could be used’
refugees and asylum seekers.
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee proposed to expand the number of designated ‘safe’ countries, adding that since Georgia was declared a ‘safe’ country by the State, the levels of asylum seekers arriving from there has halved.
Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman told the meeting the number of refugees arriving from Ukraine has dropped significantly since the start of the year, from around 600-700 per week to 150.