Accessibility of Health Services for Aged People in Rural Ireland

Document summary

This paper describes a research study carried out in Ireland looking at transport provision in rural areas in Ireland. The objective of the study was to look at experiences of older people in rural Ireland and to assess how well current levels of transport provision were meeting their transport needs. A series of focus groups with older people living in rural areas was conducted in different parts of rural Ireland, both in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. A number of interesting findings were revealed. This paper focuses on the findings relating to health trips and accessibility of health services. It was apparent that trips to health facilities (such as doctors, clinics, and hospitals) were the most important trips for older people and were also the most difficult trips to make in rural areas. It was clear that this was due to a lack of synergy between transport operators and health service providers and also a lack of synergy and coordination between government bodies devising and implementing health policy and government bodies implementing transport policy. It was also discovered that driving cessation is a major issue for older people in rural Ireland, who are often forced to give up their car at some point due to ill health or visual impairment and that this leads to significant decreases in relative mobility.