Only urgent medical care available as local GPs focus on booster rollout

Only urgent medical care is available as local GPs prioritise the booster vaccine rollout, according to Kilkenny GP Tadhg Crowley.

Dr Crowley is appealling for patients to understand why routine appointments cannot be scheduled at the moment because everyone is being mobilised to try and get this process up and running to combat the new variant of Covid-19.

Omicron accounts for 14% of cases now but is expected to become the dominant strain of the virus as quickly as next week.

Dr Crowley, from Ayrfield Medical in Kilkenny city, says urgent medical cases will still be seen but vaccination has to take priority now over routine appointments to protect our health system from the risk of collapse if Omicron causes a surge in hospitalisations.