One in four of those living in rural areas had to travel over 8km to access a GP, figures show
One in four people living in rural areas without access to a car had to travel 8km or more to access a GP, according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
In County Wexford alone, one in two households were 59km or more from an HSE Emergency Maternity Department, with one in four being more than 75km away.
Although half of all households were within 13km of a HSE Emergency Department, and within 10.4km of an HSE Injury Unit or Emergency Department.
Households were also much closer to primary care services, with half located just 1.2km of a GP and 1km from a pharmacy.
The CSO say that half of all individuals in the lowest income brackets lived more than 17km from the nearest HSE Emergency Department, compared with 6.6km for those in the highest income bracket.
When it came to the highly rural areas, one in four individuals without access to a car had over 8.2km to travel to access a pharmacy and over 8.3km to access a GP.
Dr Sinéad McLoughlin, Statistician in the Social Cohesion and Sustainable Development Goals Division, said: “This is the first in a series of releases that looks at data from Census 2022 relating to the distance of individuals and households to key services. The aim of this release was to calculate the shortest distance by road from dwellings to a range of health services.
“The release considers nine health services: Health Service Executive (HSE) General Hospitals, HSE Emergency Departments, HSE Injury Units, HSE Emergency Departments or Injury Units, HSE Maternity Departments, HSE Emergency Maternity Departments, HSE Primary Care Centres, General Practitioners (GPs) and Pharmacies. Results are provided at multiple levels of geography, including County, Administrative County (Local Authority), CSO Local Electoral Area (LEA), Small Area and HSE Health Region.
“There are six results chapters in this release, with distance to services provided at a variety of levels of geography, age and sex, health status, income, nature of occupancy, and use of a car.”