North Kerry councillors are seeking a meeting with SouthDoc to discuss issues surrounding the service in the area.
Concerns around the service were raised at the recent Listowel Municipal District meeting.
Fine Gael councillor Aoife Thornton called for a meeting between councillors and SouthDoc be arranged to discuss issues around the Christmas period, as well as how the service operates into the future.
She says the numbers of people that had to travel from the greater Listowel area to Tralee to see a GP over Christmas was significant.
Cllr Thorton says she herself had to visit SouthDoc in Tralee with her family and says everyone else there at the same time was from North Kerry.
Sinn Féin councillor Tom Barry was critical of the out-of-hours GP service, which covers Kerry and Cork, stating SouthDoc was meant to be open for four hours on Christmas Day, but he claims it didn’t open.
He also stated he didn’t get a response from the out-of-hours service regarding a request he made in November asking SouthDoc to extend their hours for the winter period and to supply councillors with their open hours for Christmas period.
The councillors asked their Fine Gael colleague Michael Foley to bring the issue up at the next meeting of the HSE South Regional Health Forum, as he’s a member of the group.
