LAST UPDATE | 7 Nov 2023
ALMOST 60% of Irish nursing and midwifery graduates from the class of 2011 who emigrated over the last 10 years have since returned, new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) indicates.
The data shows that out of all Irish nursing and midwifery graduates from the class of 2011, 34% were ‘not captured’ in the administrative records for at least one year in the 10 years since the graduated.
Of these, 59% later returned within the same period.
The HSE is currently trying to recruit healthcare workers abroad to return home. Research has also indicated many doctors emigrate for better work-life balance among other reasons.
Out of all the Irish medicine graduates in 2011, 35% were ‘not captured’ for at least one year in the 10 since they graduated. Of these, 43% later returned.
The CSO outlines that graduates categorised as ‘not captured’ have no activity in the administrative sources for that calendar year.
These data sources include employment and self-employment records from Revenue, higher education enrolments from the Higher Education Authority (HEA), and records of payments from the Department of Social Protection.
Most of this group are assumed to have emigrated, the CSO notes, but adds there is no definitive indicator of emigration available in the administrative data.
A decade after graduation, 14% of all medicine graduates, who graduated in 2011, were ‘not captured’ for more than 8 years. This compares with 10% of nursing and midwifery graduates.
Some 64% of medicine graduates in 2011 were never ‘not captured’ 10 years after graduation, and a further 8% remained ‘not captured’ for just one year.
Some 10 years after graduation, 66% of nursing and midwifery graduates in 2011 were never ‘not captured’ and a further 14% remained ‘not captured’ for just one year.
Almost all Irish medicine graduates, who graduated in 2011, were in ‘substantial employment’ in Ireland in their first year after graduation. This fell to 80% two years after graduation and 65% after 10 years.
Around 8% of nursing and midwifery graduates were ‘not captured’ in their first year after graduation, increasing to 20% after five years and falling to 15% after 10 years.
In January 2022, Niamh Humphries, a senior lecturer at the RCSI Graduate School of Healthcare Management, told The Journal that around 725 doctors graduate each year.
According to research carried out by Humphries and published in 2019, the reasons for emigrating to Australia include a better work-life balance for healthcare workers, the ability to progress into senior roles more quickly, and the option to tailor healthcare jobs to a person’s interests.
In May 2022, The Journal spoke to spoke to several healthcare professionals who have worked both in Ireland and abroad about their lives and experience of working in different healthcare systems and what it might take for some of them to return to Ireland.
Becca (28) studied general nursing in Tralee and lived in Perth at the time of speaking to The Journal.
“There’s no such thing as a patient ratio in Ireland. I used to have eight patients on a day shift in a private cardiac unit,” she explained. “In Australia, it’s such a massive contrast - it’s strictly four patients to one nurse in the public hospitals.”
Becca could have had 12 patients to herself on a night shift when she was working in Ireland. “It’s so dangerous. Would you be happy for one of your grandparents to be looked after by someone that has 11 other patients? It’s not safe for the patients and it’s not safe for the nurses,” she said.
The HSE launched a national and international recruitment campaign in June of this year to recruit consultants for the Irish health service, urging many healthcare workers abroad to return home.
The new campaign centres on the new public consultant contract and aims to fill 400 vacancies this year.
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