Dr Donal Collins is set to leave his long-term post on June 30th and once again it has been left to a group of local GPs, working on behalf of Western Rural Helathcare, to step in and fill the breach. 

Just two months after a consortium of doctors took over Ederney surgery, the model is once again being used to keep another local rural practice open, but only for the summer.   

Dr Brendan O’Hare, who hails from Enniskillen and runs the Castlederg Group Surgery, has agreed with other colleagues to cover Roslea surgery from July 1st to August 31st. 

“The best we can do at the moment will be to provide GP telephone advice in the mornings in the event of an emergency. In the afternoon, we will have a member to see patients and sign prescriptions. We will only be able to sustain this limited skeleton service on a temporary basis until the end of August because there is nothing else available,” he told the Herald yesterday.  

The news comes amid warnings that 75% of rural practices in Fermanagh are in danger of closure due to a lack of doctors and heavy workloads. As reported in this newspaper in April, a serious medical crisis is looming in south east Fermanagh because of the impending retirements of local doctors and the lack of action being taken to replace them.   

The British Medical Association (BMA) says practices in the North are struggling to survive and the profession is “on the edge of a full-blown crisis”. Fermanagh is set to be worst affected with three out of four GP practices in the county under threat. The BMA has repeatedly warned the role of the GP is expanding rapidly. With Fermanagh’s ageing population and serious long term health conditions, local GPs are being forced to do much more work with fewer staff and less resources. 

“With so many GPs in the area set to retire over the next 18 months, the prospect of replacing those working in tiny rural practices at the minute is nil. A breakdown in general practice services is going to happen in south east Fermanagh,” Dr O’Hare added.    

He has expressed disappointment that on Monday of this week, the new Health Minister Michelle O’Neill focused on tackling excessive hospital waiting times in her first statement to the Assembly since taking up the post on May 25th.

“She has completely failed to grasp that 90% of contact between patients and doctors occcurs in primary care and not in hospital. If our service breaks down, the ony default people will have is to go to an Accident and Emergency unit and the staff will never be able to cope with the volume of work that comes their way. Despite attempts by GPs to get the message across, it’s quite obvious that the politicans are looking in the wrong direction,” Dr O’Hare said.