AN €11 MILLION primary care centre in west Dublin may have to open without involvement of GPs.
The potential problem arises as a result of a dispute between doctors and the Health Service Executive. The HSE said it had offered GPs, who have free access to practise from existing premises in Ballyfermot, accommodation in the Cherry Orchard centre at a nominal rent.
Local Fine Gael TD Derek Keating said the modern centre in the grounds of Cherry Orchard hospital was for social care services in the Palmerstown area. But the primary care programme could not be advanced for full occupancy because local GPs were refusing to move in. He said the dispute centred on “a small contractual rent of about €4,000 which will give 24-hour, seven-day per week access with all . . . facilities including energy cost”.
The Irish Medical Organisation, which represents the GPs, said doctors who worked in the existing Ballyfermot HSE centre did so on a contractual rent-free basis. It said that centre was in addition to their own surgeries for which the GPs covered their own costs.
