“GP’s being cast as the villain in Governments health drama,” McGrath

15-06-2015

Independent TD Mattie McGrath has called on the Minister for Health Leo Varadkar to immediately engage with the National Association of General Practitioners in an effort to offset an impending crisis in the provision of County Tipperary’s local GP health care service. Deputy McGrath made his comments as the Tipperary sign up rate for the Governments Under 6 GP contract remains the lowest in the Country:

“The Minister’s attempt to characterise the current sign up rate in other counties as proof of the proposals viability is simply absurd.

What he and the HSE have done is to point a financial gun to the heads of GP’s and dared to call it voluntary action.

Both he and the HSE have repeatedly engaged in an utterly disingenuous public strategy whereby those GP’s who have principled and legitimate objections to the proposal are being cast as the villains of a Government created drama.

This is looking more and more like a blatant attempt to swing public opinion toward the Government at the expense of a coherent and meaningful attempt to tackle the wider crisis in local health care provision.

I do think that the public will quickly come to a more reasoned and critical view of this proposal once the inevitable drop in available appointment times becomes a reality.

It is only then that we will see that this Government has pressed ahead with a plan for GP care that at its very root will destabilise the already overloaded and underfunded GP network.

By then however this Government will have successfully touted the ‘achievement’ as a milestone in health equality as part of its pre-election spin, when it actuality we will have sleepwalked into a deeply regressive and inequitable model of GP care,” concluded Deputy McGrath.

ENDS