'Huge problem': Longford people 'afraid of being ill' due to lack of local hospital care

Every resident in County Longford lives more than 20 kilometres from a hospital, councillors at the March meeting of Longford Municipal District were told.

The figures were presented during a report to members, highlighting significant gaps in access to acute healthcare services in the county.

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The findings were outlined by Dr Shelley Deane of DCU during a presentation titled “Constitutional Visions from the Grassroots”, where she described the situation as a “huge problem.”

Dr Deane said Grassroots research is conducted by bringing women together to see “what really matters when it comes to constitutional change”, examining shared challenges and issues across different regions.

She explained that the key problems identified across Longford, Mayo, Mid-Ulster and Monaghan were healthcare, insecurity, environment and service delivery.

Dr Deane said that Longford, Mayo and Mid-Ulster are “sometimes overlooked” when it comes to these issues. Speaking on inequality in access to healthcare, she revealed that “100% of the population of Longford live 20 kilometres away from a hospital.”

She told councillors that Longford is the only county in the country with this statistic and she highlighted that there are only between seven and nine GPs per 10,000 inhabitants.

She added that while county councils “don’t have a decision making capacity when it comes to health”, there are “health regional forums where you can go to your county councillor and ask them to bring something up in the health regional forum.”

Speaking from a health and social care perspective, she said they have found people are “afraid of being ill, like they are afraid of the NCT.”

Dr Deane said that in her research “one thing everybody agreed with was there should be all of Ireland free healthcare.”

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As a possible way to make this feasible, she pointed to the idea of “paying a small amount towards healthcare”, such as €5 a week.