No patients seen in northside Cork Southdoc centre in January

No patients were seen in the SouthDoc Blackpool centre in January 2025, new figures released by the HSE have shown.

There were also no patients seen in the centre in January 2021, while 68 were seen in 2024 and 581 in 2023, compared to 2,180 in January 2019 before the pandemic.

The figures from January this year follow repeated calls for transparency around SouthDoc in Cork, as several politicians have shared stories from their constituents of being sent to SouthDoc facilities further away than the local one they had visited previously, such as Kinsale Rd in the case of patients on the northside of Cork city who would previously go to Blackpool.

Mari O’Donovan, interim head of primary care at HSE South West, explained that Blackpool patients treated via home visit or telemedicine were not included in the figure. She said: “All city patients are processed through a single treatment centre address, which is Cork city, and appointments allocated in accordance with clinical need.

“This centralised approach aims to streamline the patient management process.

“By consolidating the management process of the patient’s clinical needs, the Cork city centre can better allocate resources, adapting to the varying levels of clinical need among its diverse patient population.”

“All patients are treated in accordance with clinical condition.

“Specifically in relation to Cork city patients, including Blackpool, 51% of patients are dealt with by a doctor within two hours, a further 22% within three hours, and 85% within four hours,” Ms O’Donovan added.

Dr John Sheehan, a Blackpool GP and Fianna Fáil councillor, explained that the centralised approach was more efficient, but that the current location was not ideal.

“The figure doesn’t surprise me,” he said, speaking to The Echo yesterday

“I’ll be working in SouthDoc this evening and there will be three or four colleagues at the base in Kinsale Rd.

“In Blackpool, there will be one doctor and they’ll be attached to a car, so the nature of it is that they’ll be out in the car most of the time.”

Dr Sheehan said that the SouthDoc service has “undergone a bit of a reconfiguration”.

“Some of the rural centres have been amalgamated due to a shortage of doctors.

“In the city, numbers indicate that it’s more efficient and quality of care is better in one centrally located centre, but it has to be accessible.

“The Kinsale Rd roundabout is not accessible to everyone, especially if you don’t have a car, it’s not like rural areas where people are used to travelling by car.

“It doesn’t suit people in places like Farranree who don’t have a car, that has to be taken into consideration.

“The centre should be located somewhere you can get to by public transport.”

Dr Sheehan added that he felt the HSE should be looking at making other health services out of hours, such as the injury unit at Mercy University Hospital, which closes at 6pm, saying: “It’s not all about one centre versus two for SouthDoc, it’s about providing a whole range of urgent care options for all people of Cork.”

Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central Thomas Gould, to whom the HSE sent the data following a parliamentary question, said he is “hearing from people that are not being given the option of an appointment in Blackpool and are instead paying for taxis or driving to Kinsale Rd”.

He said the HSE should “it that it [SouthDoc Blackpool] is closed” and “reopen it”.

The Echo ed the HSE for comment.