Dr Brendan O’Hare
A LOCAL GP has issued a stark warning that a serious medical crisis is looming in the First Minister’s own home patch in the south of the county. Impending retirements of local doctors and the lack of action being taken to replace them is at the root of the problem.
Dr Brendan O’Hare from Ederney surgery says the shortage of doctors comes at a time when there is a huge demand for GP services as they deal with more consultations than ever.
“Right through the West, around a quarter of the GP workforce are aged 55 or over so out of 200, you’re talking about 50 whose career end is approaching,” he told the Herald. “The south-east of Fermanagh in Arlene Foster’s own home turf is going to be a serious challenge because we have a number of very small practices and several retirements coming up.”
In February fears were raised for the future of Ederney surgery after it was revealed no GP had been found to replace Dr Ronan Harte, who left to take up a new post.
The practice, which has a 17-mile radius, was set to close if no replacement for Dr Harte could be found by the end of March. However, an umbrella group of local doctors led by Dr O’Hare helped to secure the surgery’s future and ensure patients were provided with a full range of services. The move is being seen as a blueprint for the way forward for rural practices.
“Ederney was the perfect example of the fact that young doctors will not come and work on their own in a small rural town for the rest of their lives. Those days are over – it’s a lonely, isolated way of working and younger doctors won’t choose it.”
In his 28 years as a GP, Dr O’Hare says he has seen huge increases in the volume of workloads local doctors face.
“I started work at ten past eight this morning and I’ll be lucky if I get home by 8 o’clock tonight by the time I’ve finished seeing patients and got all of the paperwork done. There is a minimum time that you can spend with patients but you have to strike the balance between being efficient and allowing people time. “The one group of people who don’t complain about having to wait for ages in the surgery are the elderly people living alone because part of it is a social outing for them.”
When pressed by the Herald in February on local concerns regarding staffing levels and recruitment in Fermanagh, the Health Minister Simon Hamilton said that measures are being taken to address the shortage of doctors in Western Trust region.
“The investment in more doctors in training will see over 30 doctors in training working in the Western Trust area by 2017, six of those will start in SWAH in August.”
He continued: “There are issues, but we’re trying our best in terms of making those appropriate investments to increase numbers of doctors in training, consultants right across Northern Ireland, but also trying to address problems here in Fermanagh and the west generally.”
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