A Tipperary GP has described as a “national crisis” the challenge faced in recruiting GPs to fill regional practices.
Nenagh-based Dr Pat Harrold was responding on Tipp Today earlier to the ongoing unease in Templemore about efforts to find a GP to replace the retired Dr Joe Hennessy.
Dr Harrold is confident the problem in Templemore will be replicated in many other towns and villages, with 700 GPs in line for retirement in the near future.
He says that admin duties need to be eased to make these GP vacancies an attractive prospect:
“It’s far more complicated than what it was 25-30 years ago. So if the HSE would put in, just for example in north Tipperary, a Practice Management Team to look after all that sort of thing, and if they trained up from the bottom people to take the blood, Practice Nurses, and the whole Primary Care team. It would make the job so much more attractive.”
Listen back to the full interview here.
