“When will the New Primary Care Centre in Listowel be officially opened to the Public and will all services be available.” Cllr Mike Kennelly
Question posed to HSE by Cllr. Mike Kennelly.
Response: “The construction phase of the development of the Primary Care Centre (PCC) in Listowel is complete and has been handed over to the HSE. The commissioning and equipping stage of the development is progressing and once completed services will commence moving in to the PCC on a phased basis.
The following HSE services will be delivered in the new PCC in Listowel: Nursing; Physiotherapy; OT; SLT; Dietetics; Community medicine and Home Support Services. Other HSE services will have access to bookable rooms. It is anticipated that all of these services will have transfer into the PCC by the end of the 2020.”
Michael Fitzgerald, Chief Officer, Cork Kerry Community Healthcare
“Can HSE give an update when the Out of Hours South Doc Services are restored in Listowel as these services to the Listowel area are urgently needed.” Cllr. Mike Kennelly
Response: “South West Doctors on Call Limited is an Out of Hours Family Doctor service for urgent medical care in Counties Cork and Kerry with its administrative headquarters and call centre in Killarney. It has a membership of over 500 GPs and a network of 26 treatment centres of which eight are overnight and supported by a fleet of 21 vehicles which are fully equipped for home visit situations.
It provides a service to a population of approximately 694,000 plus the 3.3M visitors to the area, and dealt with over 222,000 patient contacts in 2019. Although a number of these patient contacts were deemed to be emergency related, it is important to point out that while SouthDoc works closely with the Emergency Services is not the primary emergency service provider.
When a patient makes contact with SouthDoc, an electronic medical record is created which documents the patient’s details, clinical category and progression through the service.
The Board of Directors of SouthDoc initiated a consolidated service delivery model on March 14, 2020 in response to the challenges posed by the emerging pandemic.
The decision was based on clinical criteria to ensure the safety and welfare of patients, staff and doctors. In the interim all calls for North Kerry are being dealt with in the normal way with the patient electronic record being sent to the Tralee Treatment Centre where the Listowel and Tralee doctors are based. All patients have been dealt with and no patient has been without medical attention or care.
In the interim, SouthDoc has been liaising with the GPs in the North Kerry area and take on board their views in relation to the safe delivery of the out of hours service.
Since March the SouthDoc Board of Directors have been reviewing the consolidated service delivery model and continue to do so. At this time it is deemed prudent and appropriate that the current model remains in place. However, this is under constant review.
SouthDoc continues to deliver the service in response to the patient needs in a manner which assures safety, ease and equity of access and does not have any plans to alter the service in any way that would diminish this ethos. All patients are dealt with in accordance with their clinical needs.
Máire Hussey, General Manager, Southwest Doctors-On-Call Company
