Deep concern in Cork region over its vital SouthDoc service
CorkmanA West Cork councillor has expressed fears that the SouthDoc out-of-hours GP service is being withdrawn from the region by “stealth” with reportedly no doctor rostered to work in Clonakilty on Christmas Day.
Cllr Daniel Sexton raised the issue at this month’s meeting of the West Cork Municipal District. “I saw an internal document where there was no staff rostered on for SouthDoc in Clonakilty for Christmas Day and the next morning staff members actually got a phone call to come in so I'm just wondering what is going on with SouthDoc. There's an awful lot of messing going on in West Cork with it as a whole. People ringing up to see doctors in Clonakilty are being sent into Bandon, they're being sent up to Cork,” he said.
“I know they have a service level agreement with the HSE and the HSE will tell you that everything's working perfectly but they're the same people that tell you that SouthDoc is open in Skibbereen and different places. When you go looking through these centres, there's nothing happening in a lot of them. In Skibbereen you can't see a doctor there, it's next to impossible.”
“There are problems within SouthDoc. The HSE are not aware of them, but it seems to me that they seem to be cutting corners and cutting staff to save a few bob here and there where they can, which is very, very dangerous. It's playing with lives,” the Independent Ireland councillor said.
Cllr Joe Carroll agreed. “I was told by people who are employed there that it doesn't exist at all in Skibbereen, not for a couple of years. Clarity is needed on that. I remember being a councillor when SouthDoc was put before us, it was going to be the end of all our troubles. Now we find it’s not there at all and not alone is it not there but when it went we weren't told it was going. It’s disgraceful,” he said.
Cllr Brendan McCarthy said the issue came up on the doors during the 2024 local election campaign. “There were people didn't know it was going to be gone from Skibbereen at all until it was gone so I think if there's any threat that it might be gone also from other places in West Cork. Especially in the last few weeks when we had medical centres and regular hours being disrupted over the Christmas period and there was a lot more demand with flu season on the SouthDoc services.”
He said people in Skibbereen who contact the service are told “you're either going to Bantry or Bandon and you might end up going to Bantry and then the next thing you hear is that you have to go to Cork so why didn’t they send you to Bandon in the first place? It's just another headache for someone who's obviously in need of urgent medical care.”
Skibbereen is still shown on SouthDoc’s website as one of its locations in West Cork but Cllr Sexton told the Irish Independent that it is effectively closed. “They never announced it was closed but that's what they do, they do these things by stealth. It's still advertised as being open, but it's not open. They're not seeing patients there, they'll divert you somewhere else.”
He is worried that what happened in Skibbereen will also happen in Clonakilty and other West Cork locations. “SouthDoc is far from perfect but when it works it works fairly well at the same time. But the likes of sending people in to Bandon and up to Cork to see a doctor is just not on in this day and age,” he said.
The West Cork Municipal District agreed to write to SouthDoc and the HSE about the issue.