Members of the GP Committee of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) are to withdraw from primary care teams in protest the planned introduction of cuts to GP fees. Health Minister James Reilly last week announced that fees to GPs would be slashed by around 7.5% for those patients with medical cards.

The IMO says these cuts combined with previous rounds of cuts since the present crisis began mean a total of over €150 million has been taken out of providing GP services to patients.

At an emergency meeting on Monday night the organisation agreed to withdraw from primary care teams in protest. It also decided to pull out of other work not covered by the medical card contract including Community Intervention teams and Clinical Care Programmes.

The GP Committee has expressed concern that these cuts will have a direct impact on the range of services which individual GPs are able to provide to their patients and will ultimately, it says, lead to greater costs for the health service as a result of increased demand on secondary or community care budgets.

'Abandonment' of any free GP care

The Committee believes that these latest cuts mark 'the abandonment by the government of any ambition to proceed with free GP care as part of universal health care.

The IMO says that while GPs remain committed to the provision of a high quality service, any additional services which patients may need will now cease.

The Chairman of the GP Committee, Dr. Ray Walley, said "This latest round of cuts will have a massive detrimental impact on patient services. Our members are committed to doing all they can on behalf of their patients but faced with these continuous cuts, GPs will now have to focus on working to their contracts and having other services referred for attention to their nearest hospital".

"This is not good for patients or the health services. This latest move by government further undermines general practice and will ultimately lead to higher costs" he added.