Mayo challenge to Westdoc's emergency response claims

A Mayo member of the HSE West Forum has challenged the authority on a report which claims Westdoc responds to emergency calls 'within 45 minutes'.

Councillor Michael Kilcoyne said he is not aware of any patient who experienced such a swift response time.

The report further stated that the longest a patient had to wait to be seen by a doctor was five hours in respect of an non-urgent matter.

“In my experience, it's more like eight hours,” stated Councillor Kilcoyne.

The Castlebar-based representative has also questioned details in respect of home visits.

He stated: “The HSE has told me there were 1,324 home visits in 2019, a total of 743 in 2020 and 588 last year.

“That's an average of 17 visits per week across the counties of Mayo, Galway and Roscommon. That seems very low to me for a service that costs up to €4 million per annum.

“I am not happy, either, with the operation of the clinics and do not see the sense of people in Castlebar being told to travel to Knock when there is already a clinic in the county town,” he said.

An average of over 33,000 calls per annum have been received by the Westdoc service in Mayo, Galway and Roscommon since 2019.

A total of 88 GPs are involved in the service and the number of locums varies.

All requests by patients to be seen by a doctor is based on clinical needs, the report stated.