A Polish healthcare firm plans to open its second Irish medical centre in Cork this autumn, catering mainly for Ireland's significant Polish community.
EMC Healthcare, which opened its first medical centre at Parnell Square in Dublin at the beginning of the month, also plans to open a medical centre in Limerick as well as a small day-surgery hospital in Dublin.
Staff at the centres speak Polish, English, Russian and Lithuanian and some of the doctors have travelled here from Poland.
The number of Polish doctors registered with the Irish Medical Council has almost doubled in the last year from 103 in July 2006 to 197 in July of this year with 16 applications pending.
The company has identified three potential premises for its new Cork clinic, one of which is located close to a private hospital and it will be making a decision on the location within the next week.
The EMC centres offer standard GP services for children and adults as well as a wide range of additional services including laboratory diagnostics, diagnostics with use of ultrasound imaging, dental digital X-ray, gastroscopy and surgical and gynaecological procedures.
The public company, which is quoted on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, operates five private hospitals in Poland and 10 outpatient clinics similar to the Dublin facility.
Prof Jaroslaw Leszczyszyn of EMC's Dublin centre said they have been much busier than expected since they opened their doors there on August 1st.
"We didn't expect so many patients when we opened. We are seeing between 30 to 50 patients daily. We have two Lithuanian GPs and three Polish GPs as well as an EMT specialist, a surgeon, a gastroenterologist and a neurologist all providing services at the clinic," he explained.
Prof Leszczyszyn pointed out that about half of Ireland's Polish population of 200,000 do not speak much English and it is important for these people to be able to explain their medical problems in their native language.
"The healthcare systems in Poland and Ireland are absolutely different. The system in Poland is much more social and it is compulsory to join the State's health insurance scheme," he said. "It is almost impossible to make an appointment to see a doctor outside a hospital setting in Ireland as the waiting lists are so long, but in Poland this is a popular practice."
The fees charged at the Dublin clinic are quite similar to those charged in Ireland generally with patients paying €50 for a routine GP visit. A number of patients have been referred back to Poland for hospital procedures or surgery as it is much cheaper there.
"It's not convenient for some people to go back to Poland to go to hospital because they are working in Ireland which is why we are planning to open a small hospital based on day surgery here within the next year, probably in Dublin," he said.
While the majority of the Dublin clinic's patients are Polish, Prof Leszczyszyn estimated that up to 20 per cent are English speaking.
The clinic, which opens seven days a week, is particularly busy with tourists on Saturdays and Sundays as they do not require an appointment.
