General Practitioner Availability

Why Are General Practitioners Always So Busy?

So, you have persistent pain in your hip or a sore throat that’s been getting steadily worse over the past five days. Naturally, you want to make an appointment with a general practitioner to see what’s going on with your body and how they may be able to help you. However, when you phone your local practice, you are very likely to be told that there is no available appointment slot for several days. So, instead, you pop around to the nearest pharmacy and purchase some over-the-counter painkillers or throat lozenges, settling for relief of your symptoms rather than seeking a possible cure.

While, in many cases, this may be more of an inconvenience than a danger, many of those unable to see a general practitioner will often present themselves at an A&E department, adding unnecessarily to its load and perhaps taking up time better suited to genuine emergencies. So just why are family doctors always so busy? The answer, in many cases, is a twofold one. Many GPs simply enrol too many patients on their books, especially in areas where there are fewer practices.

The second reason is that many of those patients who do succeed in obtaining an appointment with a general practitioner could have solved their problem, both more quickly and more cheaply, simply by consulting a pharmacist. It is, unfortunately, a trend that, at least in part, appears to stem from a sense of entitlement in the face of costly medical-aid premiums.

Another factor is that the length of a consultation tends to be somewhat unpredictable and so doctors often choose to base their appointment system on a fixed number of slots of equal duration. While some consultations may take just a few minutes, others will often overrun, thus making it difficult for the average general practitioner to accept more patients at short notice.

In South Africa, Intercare Medical Centres are dedicated to solving this and other common problems encountered with primary healthcare services in a variety of ways. Firstly, Intercare centres are multidisciplinary thus, for example, enabling a patient to consult a dentist, a dietician, a psychologist, an optometrist or, of course, a general practitioner, all under the same roof.

Even more of a bonus is that these centres all offer extended operating hours and are even open for business on weekends when most GPs are normally unavailable. Furthermore, if you have an illness or injury that needs immediate attention but does not require hospitalisation, you can just present yourself at an Intercare centre without making an appointment. Finally, arranging an appointment with a general practitioner is simple with Intercare’s online booking system.