asked the Minister for Health if in view of the fact that there is no hospital in the Coolock area and that the nearest hospital is the Children's Hospital in Temple Street, he will consider giving a 24 hour medical service in the dispensary at Bonnybrook, Coolock, Dublin.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Coolock (Dublin) Dispensary Service.
24.
The health centre in Bonnybrook, Coolock, accommodates fixed dispensary sessions and public health clinics and was never intended or designed to provide a continuous service to deal with medical emergencies. I do not consider it practicable or desirable to provide continuous medical staffing at health centres of this type.
Persons covered by medical cards have at all times the dispensary doctors services available to them in case of emergency. Private patients can call on their own doctors in similar circumstances.
The provision of hospital treatment for a domiciliary case is a matter in the first instance for the appropriate general practitioner who would arrange for the patient's transfer to hospital if this were necessary.
Is the Minister aware that in this area, where there are a large number of young families, there is no doctor at all for private patients and that patients will not be allowed into Temple Street Hospital unless they have seen a doctor? If a dispensary were opened on a 24 hour basis, at least they would be able to see a doctor and then be allowed into Temple Street Hospital.
Dublin Health Authority have informed me that they regard the position as adequate and I would not like to set a precedent for establishing continuous public health clinics because I think it is very important that the doctor should make the decision whether the person requires hospitalisation or not and that they then should be sent to hospital where they can have the full facilities that are available. The distance limits from the hospitals concerned judged by any standards are not great.
There are no doctors in this area at all. There is one doctor to cater for the whole area and they cannot get a doctor.
Would the Minister consider, in populous areas like this, the introduction of some kind of dressing station——
Yes.
——for minor injuries and things like that in the case of children in these special areas only?
It has not been recommended to me but I will draw the attention of the Dublin Health Authority to what the Deputies have said about the position of doctors there. My information is that the medical service is adequate in the area.
It certainly is not.