HEALTH CENTRE REFUTES LONG WAIT CLAIMS
Amid claims by some patients of long waiting times at the new LivingHealth Centre in Mitchelstown, Dr Tom O’Callaghan this week moved to reassure patients.
He told The Avondhu: “We have had a few teething problems with the phone system and I.T. but this is being improved all the time. Overall we have had very little negative feedback, the community has been very supportive and we appreciate that. We welcome suggestions from people on how things could be improved.”
“ The centre has received a lot of praise from patients and indeed other GP's from the area. The primary aim behind the development of the centre was to create a "one-stop shop’ for the people of the region.”
Dr O’Callaghan also said that Foreign Affairs Minister, Micheal Martin, would be in Mitchelstown to officially open the medical centre on Friday, January 30. He confirmed to The Avondhu that the Heath Service Executive (HSE) would be relocating all the services currently at Cahir Hill to the centre in Mitchelstown in early January.
The €10 million medical centre which, opened in November now has all seven local Mitchelstown doctors under one roof and provides diabetes and asthma clinics, cardiac clinics and a physiotherapy service.
The centre also has a gym and early in the New Year Boots Pharmacy will open an outlet on site. The centre also has Munster’s first privately operated ‘in-house diagnostic suite’, allowing visiting consultants to carry out x-rays, bone density tests and ultra-sounds.
“We had over 2,500 people at the open day and we had a GP open night which saw over 100 GP’s from around North Cork, Tipperary, Limerick and Waterford attend and I have to say they were very impressed with what they saw here. The fact that you have a team of ancillary health care professionals here, like a speech therapist, dietician, physiotherapist and so on, before it was harder to access these services now we have internal email and can refer patients there and then,” said Dr O’Callaghan.
“We have another GP open night planned, we have an ongoing educational programme for the GP’s and we have to eventually reach ISO 5000 standard. By the end of March we will have a health screening unit, people will be able to have a full days health screening service here at the centre,” Dr O’Callaghan said.
“We would like to thank everybody for the support and help and would hope that they have a happy and safe Christmas,” Dr O’Callaghan said.
Published:
Tuesday 30th December 12:26pm
