A Kerry NPHET member is one of 20 GPs who’ve published a letter urging for Sláintecare to be given more political backing.
Dr Mary Favier, who’s from Listowel and is based in Cork, is a member of GPs at the Deep End, a group of general practitioners working in the most disadvantaged communities in Ireland. Sláintecare is the ten-year programme which aims to transform the health and social care services.
There have been a number of resignations from the team responsible for implementing Sláintecare in recent weeks, with the slow pace of change among the reasons given by those who departed. In a letter to the Irish Times, GPs at the Deep End say they work in disadvantaged areas where death rates are up to three times higher for the main causes of death compared to the most affluent areas.
The groups says public health services are distributed according to numbers, resulting in less access to essential health services for the sickest. It says that Sláintecare, the all-party backed plan to reform the health service, contained an explicit commitment to address health inequalities and that GPs had already seen the benefit of the plan.
The GPs add that the HSE has shown how quickly it can work, when given the political and financial backing during the pandemic.
They add that Sláintecare needs the same political will now.
