Social Democrats Cllr. Jennifer Whitmore has questioned the delay to the rollout of the Out-of-Hours GP service for North Wicklow.
Whitmore said: “In January this year, Minister Harris made an announcement of an Out-of-Hours GP service for North Wicklow. North Wicklow is one of the few urban areas in the country that doesn’t have a service of this kind, and the Minister’s announcement was very welcome.
The proposed service was to provide urgent GP series from 6pm to 8am and on weekends, and plus a triage serve. According to the Ministers announcement, it was expected that the public advertisement (including eTenders) for the service would happen in February and that it would be operational by the end of June 2018.”
“Unfortunately, it would now appear that there has been a delay to that schedule. The HSE has announced that they are to hold a meeting next Monday evening in Bray with local GPs to establish the best type of model of service to roll out. The fact that the process is still in the consultation phase would indicate that there will be a significant delay to the start date of this service for North Wicklow.”
Whitmore continued: “This is very disappointing for residents of North Wicklow. We have been waiting for years for this service to be put in place and now it looks like we have another wait ahead before it is operational. This is not the first time this important service has been delayed. I would ask that the Minister clarify when North Wicklow can expect to have an Out-of-Hour GP and if he can put all necessary resources in place to make sure this happens as quickly as possible.”
ENDS
13 April 2018