MOST parents have been there. It’s the middle of the night or the weekend, and your child has taken a turn for the worse.
Their temperature is soaring, or a rash is developing. Perhaps they have a sore neck or a worrying headache. Will I Google it? Big mistake! The child seems to be in great pain, then again, this one can be a tad dramatic...
Sometimes the child’s illness subsides, and in the cold light of the next day, you realise you made the right call and trusted your instincts not to call a doctor.
Other times, your instinct says otherwise. Your child is sick, and you need a doctor now. End of. This is where the out-of-hours health system kicks in.
It happened to us last weekend. Our youngest child had been sickly for four days, and the symptoms were persisting and potentially sinister. On Sunday morning, we bit the bullet. We needed a doctor, but who to call?
I immediately thought of the SouthDoc service in our nearest town of Macroom. This out-of-hours surgery has been available locally ever since we moved to the area more than 20 years ago.
However, in recent weeks, confusion has surrounded the service in Macroom. Word on the street and on local online message boards is that it has gone, or at least been curtailed, since a ‘realignment’ of SouthDoc in the region was announced at the start of the year, but the HSE deny this.
Patients are being asked to attend the SouthDoc at the Kinsale Road roundabout if they have transport, and we didn’t fancy embarking on a long journey with a sickly child. It can also take a while for SouthDoc to carry out a triage and advise you on your next step.
Luckily, we had an alternative at hand - a new out-of-hours surgery that has just opened in Macroom.
It is called SwiftDoc, and a quick call secured an appointment there within the hour. The clinic is very impressive, set in a large, spacious and gleaming facility above Deasy’s pharmacy in Main Street.
Our daughter was seen straight away by the personable Dr Rawle Maicoo and two anxious parents were quickly reassured that their child would soon be on the road to recovery.
We were in and out in minutes, and it was one of those experiences that make you want to sing the praises of the health system from the rooftops.
In a recent interview with The Echo, Dr Maicoo explained that the SwiftDoc service could be a game-changer for Macroom and for other areas where uncertainty surrounds the future of the SouthDoc system.
“We want to do things differently - when you call SouthDoc, because of the sheer number of patients, you have to be screened and go through a triage process,” said Dr Maicoo.
“The purpose of SwiftDoc is to do things differently, where the patient can come straight in, they can call, they can book online, they can be seen very quickly - it’s about making healthcare more accessible to the average user.”
That was certainly our experience last weekend.
An adult consultation at SwiftDoc costs €65 and €40 for a child, which is in line with normal GP charges.
One sticking point is that medical card holders have to pay this too - Dr Maicoo has been trying to get the HSE to allow him to be able to treat them and claim the fees back. “However, they’re not budging,” he said.
When I enquired with the HSE this week about SouthDoc in Macroom, they insisted the service remained in place in the town, providing a surgery and home visits where necessary.
However, few would deny that the system has been creaking for some time, owing to a chronic shortage of staff and their ever-increasing workload, begging the question of how much longer it can go on in rural areas.
Whether he is a rival or a replacement for SouthDoc, or indeed happy to work alongside it, Dr Maicoo - who has worked in the emergency departments of the CUH and the Mercy, and who has a practice in Bandon - and other GPs who join him at SwiftDoc, are surely doing the State a service.
In 2006, there were 162,000 patient consultations, but last year this reached 231,000, yet GP numbers are declining, and a quarter are now aged over 60. This situation is exacerbated in the sticks.
In an article for The Echo on Thursday, Dr Catherine Conlon, a public health doctor with the HSE, stated that rural healthcare has reached breaking point owing to a chronic GP shortage, and called for various measures to resolve the crisis.
Bear in mind, too, that Southdoc is staffed by GPs already run off their feet in their day jobs, and you get an understanding of why the out-of-hours service has been creaking.
For months in Macroom, there have been multiple warnings from health professionals about the precarious future of its SouthDoc, met by reassurances from the HSE.
Local councillors and TDs have tried to get clarity, and there is a strong chance this will become a big issue on doorsteps in the run up to the local elections in the area.
Macroom is only the latest rural Cork town to feel the pinch on this. Communities in and around Kanturk, Charleville, and Fermoy have all expressed concern about the SouthDoc service in recent times.
SwiftDoc seem keen to fill the gap, but their arrival raises questions.
How many people are aware that they are there? Very few at present, I would suggest. And, as the entire health service comes under greater strain, why can’t the HSE fund the medical card holders being seen by SwiftDoc? Wouldn’t that relieve the pressure on their SouthDoc service and, indeed, on other areas of the health service such as A&E?
Dr Maicoo believes there are doctors who provide locum and out-of-hour cover in the Bandon-Ballincollig-Macroom region who would be interested in setting up similar services to SwiftDoc in other towns.
He views GPs and out-of-hours services, such as SwiftDoc, as vital in the campaign to keep emergency departments in hospitals free for patients with serious injuries and illnesses. He sees the new service as a support for GPs, rather than a competitor to SouthDoc.
In response to queries, a spokesperson for Cork Kerry Community Healthcare said: “SouthDoc is committed to the long term continuation of the provision of the Out-of-Hours service in the Macroom region. All treatment centres in the area will remain available to the Out-of-Hours service.
“Any patients who require Out-of-Hours GP care should contact the SouthDoc number - as they always have - where they will be triaged. The number is 0818 355 999.
“All presentations via the Southdoc phoneline are triaged by a relevant clinician and following triage, appropriate treatment will follow by referral to appropriate services such as: Emergency Department, Telehealth, appointment in relevant treatment centre, or home visit.
“Consultations at the Macroom Treatment Centre will continue to be available to patients by appointment and as deemed clinically appropriate by the consulting doctor.”
I asked SouthDoc to provide a figure for the number of calls received by Macroom SouthDoc since the start of the year, and a breakdown of which patients were seen in the town surgery, which had house calls, and which were re-directed to other SouthDoc centres.
There had been no response at time of going to press.
Read More
This referendum should be an open goal... what an epic fail! More in this section
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
visit website
