GP Card....cannot use on a Saturday.

The nationwide shortage of GPs has been discussed in the media a lot over the last few years and its no different urban or rural . You havent said whethet you think its worse in urban or rural areas . You are lucky if your loca practice has managed to recruit a young doctor

PRESS RELEASE New research shows GP workforce deficits across Ireland - ICGP News

PRESS RELEASE New analysis of GP workforce data matched to population increases shows that GP numbers are not keeping pace with rapidly growing population, ...
icgpnews.ie

'It's getting worse': Heavy workloads see GPs close lists

More than three quarters of the approximately 2,500 GP practices in Ireland have closed their lists to new patients, according to the Irish College of General Practitioners.
www.rte.ie

Ireland facing worsening shortage of GPs as retirements loom, representative body warns

Local TDs have expressed concern that there is still no successor in place for outgoing doctor in Ardara, Co Donegal
www.irishtimes.com
 
Citizens information states the following

If you have a medical card or GP visit card, your doctor must treat you in the same way they treat private patients. GPs have a contract with the HSE listing the services they must provide for medical card and GP visit card holders. This means that for example, surgery times and access to home visits must be the same for all patients.

Services for medical card and GP visit card holders

Family doctors (GPs) provide certain services to medical card and GP visit card holders free of charge.
www.citizensinformation.ie

It would be interesting to see if private only patients on a Saturday is against this rule
 
From the GMS contract:

"AVAILABILITY
The medical practitioner shall be routinely available for consultation by eligible persons at his approved surgery or surgeries and for domiciliary visiting for a total of 40 hours each week on five days or more in the week by agreement with the Health Service Executive. His hours of availability shall have regard to his patients' needs in the locality and he shall not amend them without the agreement of the Health Service Executive. Full regard shall be had to existing satisfactory arrangements where such already exist. The medical practitioner shall also make suitable arrangements to enable contact to be made with him or his locum/deputy outside normal hours for urgent cases. He shall make known to his patients his hours of routine availability by way of notice in his practice premises.....

...he medical practitioner shall himself normally provide in person services under this agreement but may do so through a deputy who shall be a registered medical practitioner (not being a medical practitioner as respects whom an agreement has been suspended under para. 31 or terminated under paragraphs 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, unless with the consent of the chief executive officer of the Health Service Executive). The participating medical practitioner shall retain full responsibility for the proper care of all patients on his list and shall be responsible for the provision of services under this contract to his patients by any deputy or assistant."
 
huskerdu said:
You are lucky if your loca practice has managed to recruit a young doctor
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It has recruited three of them (urban area).

I pay €70 per visit which might have something to do with it though.

Ireland now graduates more physicians per head than nearly anywhere else, double the OECD average. See https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/els-2023-1658-en/index.html (here).
 

Be careful here, lots of med students are non-EU students, paying large fees, who have no intention of staying here.

So graduate numbers might not be a good indication of potential new staff to the healthcare system here.
 
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The out of hours DDOC service in the northside of Dublin is efficient in my opinion. I have had to use it 3/4 times this year and have always been able to get an appointment within an hour or so. May be more difficult in other parts of the country but it was easier than try to get an appointment with our GP.
 
Annieindublin said:
We picked a doctor partly because they were open evenings and weekends as we both work full time.
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The GP sector is blighted by doctors burned out by overwork. I know a number who quit altogether because they had almost destroyed themselves by working all sorts of unsustainable hours. I'd be very wary if my own GP was doing that.
 
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