GPs vote against recent under-six contract proposed by Irish government

The National Association of General Practitioners (NAGP) has rejected the under-sixes deal made between the Department of Health and the Irish Medical Organisation earlier this week.

The agreement, which was announced on Thursday, has been slammed by the doctors' association who dubbed it 'medical apartheid' and suggested it was motivated by election votes than 'real patient need'.

Explaining their reasoning, the chairman of the association, Dr. Andy Jordan, said: "The mortality rate in children less than 18 years of age is 3.8/10,000 and the vast majority of those are caused by accidents not illness. At the same time we have 5,000 deaths per year in Ireland from cardiovascular disease but there is no money to provide free GP care to those patients."

An emergency meeting of the National Council of the NAGP, which was held earlier today, saw all 23 members vote to reject the contract, believing that "it will fuel the inequalities that already exist in our health service."

Clarifying their resistance to the proposal, Dr. Jordan went on to say: "The truth is that GPs cannot afford to sign this contract. The funding on offer will barely cover the cost of providing the service, which equates to an extra 4.5 million consultations per year."

The NAGP was not involved in negotiations which took place between the IMO and HSE and feel that accepting the proposal means that "they will be letting ourselves down and letting our patients down."

The association are due to ballot its 1200 members on the matter.