IN a week when a Kerry GP advised the public not to attend the accident and emergency department of University Hospital Kerry, unless it was absolutely necessary, it has emerged that the facility is being put under pressure because patients are finding it increasingly difficult to get an appointment with their GPs.
Dr Bridget O’Brien took to social media on Tuesday night to advise people of the situation at University Hospital Kerry where, she claimed, there was a 12-hour wait before patients were seen and it was standing room only in the waiting area.
But despite repeated appeals for people not to attend A+E and to visit their GP instead, it has emerged that many people are finding it almost impossible to secure an appointment with their family doctor.
The chaos appears to be at its worst in Killarney where it is proving extremely difficult to get a GP appointment without calling at least 24 hours in advance.
KillarneyToday.com is aware of one particular patient, suffering from a very severe infection and feeling very unwell, who was unable to secure an appointment with a doctor, despite contacting two different medical centres in Killarney with several GPs practicing in each.
Instead, the patient had to wait until the out-of-hours SouthDoc service commenced to get an appointment and, when the treatment administered there failed to adequately improve the symptoms, the patient again attempted to make an appointment with their GP five days later but was told there was none available and that every doctor was fully booked.
Family doctors had previously warned that further increases in eligibility for free GP care, in the absence of increased capacity, would jeopardise the provision of same-day services and lead to waiting lists but, in many instances in Killarney, that already seems to be the case with patients not being able to obtain an appointment.
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