MEMBERS of Clare County Council are seeking a meeting with Shannondoc management to discuss what was called the “extremely frustrating” situation that developed at the out-of-hours service during Christmas.
The council’s January meeting heard that many patients were unable to access or even contact the service, which provides out of hours of medical care in Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary.
In a motion to the meeting, councillor Donna McGettigan (SF) said she had received several complaints about lack of access to Shannondoc at Christmas.
“I am calling on Clare County Council to ask the management of Shannondoc the reasons why people were left with call cancellations or phones being left unanswered. I am asking what was Shannondocs plan if any? Why did it not work? Can we ask management to attend a meeting with Clare County Councillors to answer questions and discuss future plans so this does not happen again”, she stated.
Cllr McGettigan told the meeting that calls went unanswered and sick children went unseen with some being redirected to University Hospital Limerick (UHL.
Cllr McGettigan said the situation was “stressful” for families at Christmas.
She continued, “The way people were being treated was absolutely disgusting in my book. They need to stop being reactionary and start forward planning. We knew coming into this, the dogs on the street knew we were going to have serious issues”.
Supporting the motion, Gerry Flynn (Ind) said, “I remember when this service was set up and in my humble opinion it was set up for one reason only; to give out of hours time for GPs. It wasn’t set up to give an advanced service at local level”.
Cllr Ian Lynch (Ind) described the situation at Shannondoc as “extremely frustrating”.
He continued, “The chairperson of Shannondoc was screaming two weeks ago about how well prepared they were and how they were all set for Christmas. And what they did do? Nothing. There is one call centre for Tipperary, Limerick and Clare and only one person answering the phone”.
Also at the meeting, Cllr Mary Howard (FG) said, “Over Christmas, it was incredibly frustrating. You had so many people ringing and ringing and getting no answer”.
“Our medical service here in the Mid West is absolutely appalling no matter what level you look at it from”, Cllr Howard added.
