A LOCAL community group that does a wide range of work on rural issues has highlighted the enormous strain GP care is under in Fermanagh today.
The review into changing health and social care in Northern Ireland, known as the Bengoa Report, emphasised the importance of primary care and the difference it can make.
But despite looking to strengthen primary care services in the community so that more can be done outside of hospitals, the opposite is the case in rural areas, according to the Rural Community Network.
“The whole idea of Bengoa was to bring those primary care services closer to people and to keep people from needing to go to hospital. To keep people healthier in their home and their community, and for minor treatments to be delivered locally,” the group’s policy and public affairs officer, Aidan Campbell, explained.
“It’s all good in theory, but the reality is very different in Fermanagh and rural communities right across the North. The issues around GP access and GPs retiring are affecting people across rural Northern Ireland but have been felt most acutely in Fermanagh so far.
“There have been deficits in GP care in Fermanagh, in particular, and several GP practices have closed there. Primary care was to look after people closer to home, but that’s more difficult to do if GP practices are closing and the remaining GPs have to look after additional patients.
“Fermanagh is feeling it the most as there is a cohort of GPs there over 50 [years old] who are heading to retirement age. When they retire there doesn’t seem to be a cohort of new GPs coming to replace them.”
Not only that, but the closure of Fermanagh GP surgeries such as Roslea in 2017 and the strain others are coming under following the retirement of local GPs, has seen practices struggling to deliver appropriate services daily.
The Bengoa Report states the need to reinforce an “integrated primary and community health and social care delivery model so that more can be done out of hospitals”. The reality is in Fermanagh this is just not happening.
“Although a lot of hospital services were transforming, which in most cases means moving further away, primary care was supposed to be closer for people and easier for them,” Mr Campbell said.
“Access to GP services was supposed to be easier. There were to be more services available in GP surgeries locally such as physio, so people didn’t have to travel as far for it.
“But this will be more difficult to do in Fermanagh and across rural communities in the North if rural GP surgeries continue to close.”
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