Madam, – In this difficult time for our country, the Government’s four-year austerity plan would appear to be a very unlikely source of good news. However, in the midst of all the hardship that this document will inflict on the people of Ireland, there is one promised reform that will dramatically improve our health service.
On page 33 it is clearly stated that “All the restrictions on appropriately trained general practitioners who wish to hold GMS contracts will be abolished.” This is a long overdue and most welcome development. For the past three decades, public patients have effectively been controlled by the senior GP establishment, supported by the Irish Medical Organisation. Fully qualified general practitioners are denied the automatic right to see and treat those medical card holders who wish to attend them. This has enriched a minority of doctors, and denied many patients fair choice.
This disgraceful, anti-competitive and blatantly unjust culture was enforced through a complex system of local arrangement and bizarre interviews with mandatory vetoes for already established GPs. The result was that many young colleagues, eager to serve their patients, had their careers effectively destroyed. This in turn led to medical emigration from a nation with a shortage of GPs.
Earlier this year, the Competition Authority produced a landmark investigation into this matter. It recommended that all suitably trained GPs be automatically entitled to see medical card patients. The Irish Medical Organisation, which remains an integral part of the discrimination that exists, has not supported these findings. The Government has also taken no action in this regard.
I had feared that the GP establishment would succeed in their desire to continue to manipulate the system to their financial advantage. However, thanks to the IMF and the EU, this issue has now finally been given the priority it deserves and has become an integral part of the four-year economic plan.
It is to be hoped that whoever is in power over the coming weeks and months will act swiftly to implement these recommendations. Irish patients deserve nothing less. – Yours, etc,