One GP says he is not looking for 'claps in the street', but wants the resources to be able to do his job.
Dr Ray Walley was speaking after the top civil servant in the Department of Health dismissed claims there is resistance to Sláintecare as "nonsense" and a "conspiracy theory".
Robert Watt earlier appeared before the Oireachtas Health Committee after a string of high-profile resignations from the panel overseeing the healthcare reform programme.
"People went out and said there was resistance," he said.
"Not only resistance but brutal resistance which is an even greater resistance than normal resistance apparently.
"If people have evidence of that brutal resistance, they need to tell me. They can email me, text me, they can even organise a meeting and I will listen to their evidence.
"[Tell me] who, rather than pretending that there is some vast conspiracy with shadowy figures – like it is all nonsense.”
Dr Walley, a member of the IMO GP subcommittee, told The Hard Shoulder talk of reform is taking place against a backdrop of a shortage of doctors.
"The conversation in general practice and among my colleagues is the gross shortage of doctors.
"Many GPs had no summer holidays, we have worked tirelessly for the last 18 months, 24 months in regard to the pandemic.
"And there is limited, if no, focus on the fact that this is happening.
"We also know that 30% of GPs are due to retire in the next five years, and similarly with consultants.
"We know that one in five consultant posts are vacant, not one post has been filled in the last number of months.
"Yet there is no conversation with regard to that - and having a debate in regard to whatever form of healthcare you're going to provide is absolutely useless, unless you have the manpower to provide that healthcare."
'Nuts and bolts being looked at'
Dr Walley says he disputes reforms that have been done under the Sláintecare banner.
"General practitioners are really feeling bruised and abused.
"I don't want claps in the streets, I want basically resources to be able to do my job.
"We've done a lot of things which have supposedly been done under the heading of Sláintecare, I would have said they were done under engagement between the Irish Medical Organisation and the HSE and the Department of Health in the last two to three years.
"We brought in a better computerisation practice, we brought in chronic disease management - which has just won a United Nations award in the past few days - which was the basis on which we provided care to our elderly in the pandemic.
"We've a lot of accolades in what we've done - but we don't see, really, the nuts and bolts being looked at to resolve this problem.
"We are still seeing a massive emigration of our medical practitioners abroad to better resourced systems".
