Midoc closure -''Sign of complete failure of health policy''

Local Sinn Fein TD Brian Stanley says “the closure of the Midoc out of ours service for the midlands is yet another sign of policy failure by successive governments when it comes to providing basic health services. Privatisation, despite been expensive is a failure.

“Despite having one of the best funded health systems in the world, our primary care/GP system is broken. GP practices are on overload and now out of hour’s services for the midlands is in jeopardy. I have had complaints recently from people who had difficulty trying to access normal daytime GP and out of hours services.

This in turn is now adding to the huge pressures on hospital A&E departments as many people cannot access primary care services even during normal working hours.

The reliance by government on a patchwork of hundreds of private companies to provide basic health services is failing the public. We are supposed to be moving to a proper publicly owned national health system called “Slainte Care”. The collapse of the private company called Midoc underlines the need yet again to accelerate this process.

In the short term, the HSE must move quickly to put in place out of hours GP cover. They have the network of Midoc buildings in Laois/ Offaly and in the other midlands counties. If they have to directly employ GP to staff them, they should proceed immediately to do so.

I have contacted HSE senior management to impress on them the urgency of the situation and requesting that interim measures be put in place immediately “ ENDS