Concerns over possible closure of Belfast out-of-hours facility
Fiona McCarthy has been listening to people in the North Belfast area who are greatly concerned about the possibility of the closure of one of the two out-of-hours facilities for the Belfast Trust area
Currently, the two facilities are located on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast and in Forestside, in the south of the city. Whilst people understand that there may be difficulties with staffing two different locations, cutting the burden of cutting number of out-of-hours locations will fall on poor and working people.
Fiona said that one patient she spoke to recently told her that he needed to contact the out-of-hours doctor on a Sunday morning because he had a bad chest infection and needed antibiotics. The Crumlin Road facility was closed, and he was contacted later that day by the doctor from the Forestside out-of-hours clinic in south Belfast and told he could pick up a prescription from there. This man doesn’t drive and lives on the Cavehill Road where there is no Sunday bus service and no direct bus route to south Belfast. Because he could not afford a taxi across town, he had to wait until Monday morning and get his GP to issue the prescription. As a result, in all it was well over 36 hours before he could receive the medication he needed. This patient was concerned that, while he is relatively young- in his early fifties -what would have been the impact of this delay on a much older patient in the same situation?
“This proposal to close out-of-hours facilities is unacceptable”, Fiona stated, “and I’m sure patients across Belfast will find themselves in a similar situation with no transport or direct bus routes. This would seem to be more about cost cutting than providing GP services out of hours, and if these proposals are allowed to be pushed through there, we will see even more overcrowded Emergency Departments across all the Belfast hospitals.”
“Patients are already suffering the effects of not being able to get GP appointments when needed and this will make an extremely bad situation much worse. The department of health and our political representatives in the Assembly must ensure this does not happen, and if they don’t the electors must hold them to account.”