I wonder if this problem is related to the flawed CAO system, a system that promotes ability to memorize answers over actual intelligence and aptitude :/

I could be wrong here, but, I think that unlike the UK (for example) Irish newly qualified doctors are not obligated to stay on having completed their training, hence, on qualification they are voting with their feet and moving to where conditions and career are seen to be better i.e. abroad. If this is the case, then the Gov should look at this as it costs a lot of time and money to train them, and, they then need to look at why they are leaving, and fix those gaps to improve their condtions and career prospects etc. If anyone in the profession can clarify the above I would be grateful as its a scandal to have to import doctors and medical staff from countries that are in dire need of their own highly trained medical staff whilst here we wave goodbye at Cork, Shannon and Dublin ALL OVER AGAIN.

Junior doctors have often been poorly supported here in Ireland by politicians, the media, the public, their seniors and even their union. They are completely powerless to do anything without this support as all they have time to do is work, recover (hopefully with some sleep) and work again.

They are highly motivated people with intelligence, compassion and skills but how much of this can be put to use at the end of an 80 hour shift – note shift and not week! We are not getting the best from them and are refusing to support them…I don’t understand this!

They are somebody’s brother/sister, son/daughter, mother/father and often these relationships suffer enormously due to the working hours. They do not want to see patients endure substandard healthcare but without support they cannot change the system. Without training they cannot even change their role within the system. They are leaving to get the training to hopefully bring back, should we be so patriotic to recognise that and welcome them back home again after rather than continuing to villanise them which has contributed to their powerless state.

The issue of recruitment and retention focusses around training and working hours. As a potential patient I want the best trained doctor available and an alert one would help too…what I don’t want is for the government to provide no training to doctors afterall it also costs money to hire primary school teachers but I don’t begrudge them because they play an essential role in the health, education and development of our country and society.

…I also would hate to see them lower the recruitment standards for overseas doctors in a knee jerk response.

example how many leaving cert students have gotten A’s in science subjects and maybe done bad in english, irish, and french, I wonder will the indians be fluent in any of them ?

Shell to sea much?

ask cuba for some!

I am an NCHD.
The cause of the NCHD shortage is as follows:
Medical Schools in Ireland are populated with a ratio of approximately 40% Irish students and 60% overseas students. The Irish doctors have free tuition fees while the overseas students subsidise them by paying over 20,000 Euros per year. (The standard of education in Irish medical schools is slipping as is clear from international league tables.)
The result of this ratio is that on graduation, most overseas students go home. That means about 60% of the class is gone. Some Irish students leave straight away after gaining their medical degrees and some leave after doing their intern year, (The intern year being a prerequisite only for practising medicine in Ireland). This leaves only a small number of the original Irish trained medical classes left. This NCHD shortage has traditionally been supplemented by importing non-Irish trained doctors from Africa, Asia and the Middle East who are generally of high standard and who would have come to Ireland for improved pay and conditions.
In the last 3 years or so, there has been an increased recognition of deteriorating pay and conditions and training accessibility and career opportunities for NCHDs. Hence, the non-Irish trained doctors no longer choose this little country to advance their careers and lives. Meanwhile, the Irish-trained doctors are increasingly emigrating straight after internship or even straight after gaining their degrees in some cases (the latter may not intend to ever practise in Ireland).
My proposal is that all tertiary level students should now pay tuition fees and that they should be reasonable and linked to high standard tertiary education. This may or not be partially subsidised, especially poorer students. The Irish taxpayers would then have no grievance against NCHDs for choosing a better life abroad as they have a right to do. The best thing is that the majority of the medical school class would come from Ireland so they would be less likely to leave the country straight after gaining their degree as currently happens with the majority of overseas students. There would also be less competition for medical school places so we could have a secondary benefit of being able to allow the points for Medicine to drop. (This would be a sop to those touchy-feely types who suspect that the achievement of an almost perfect Leaving Cert indicates the lack of a soul or any semblance of compassion.)
Doctors should not be the only ones who have to account to the taxpayers for their free education. What about all the people who have degrees and PhDs who are currently on the dole? I don’t see anybody getting on their backs. At least doctors are providing a service which is direly needed.
It amazes me that certain sections of Irish society seem to think that the solution for the NCHD shortage is to make the NCHDs into scapegoats for the failure of the HSE to listen to our proposals for reform which would have the effect of saving money and improving patient care. The HSE’s treatment of NCHDs is what has brought us to this pass. The HSE and the government policy makers for education are the ones who should be have to account for themselves, not the NCHDs.

Recruitment drive? Certainly aren’t 200+ jobs on the HSE jobs website. I wonder will the service closures this shortage necessitates be somehow in line with the money savings they said they wouldn’t make through service closures.

It is simply illogical to expect Irish doctors to stay if they are trained to a standard where they can get better pay or conditions elsewhere.

Why not cut the consultants and upper management wages and appropriately reward those further down so we attract enough doctors that we aren’t short staffed.

Sure this will cost money but we can ban 1850 numbers from the Dail and cap the head of RTE’s wages to help pay for it as well as move some of the paperwork to electronic means and make some administrative staff redundant.

You can’t get good health care without paying for it but we are paying for it but not getting it as the money is going into providing services that a computer system could provide but it hasn’t been utilised.

Even reports from some of the bodies claiming to represent health workers are lying about some of these technologies claiming they are only becoming available now when they have been around for 10 years or more but not utilised by our out date health sector.

Health care is big money for IT companies to offer secure, proven systems that don’t fail even more fool proof than humans but they aren’t being utilised to help maximise the efficiency of the services. As long as this is the case we will continue to burn money and get sub-standard health care in return and the workers we need to be concentrating on the job they are doing will be overworked and unable to give full concentration to the job at hand.

@Matthew Fitzpatrick:
I presume that you didn’t do so well in the Leaving Cert due to inability to memorise answers. Dementia is a horrible affliction. You have my sympathy. Thankfully, this failure must mean that you have compassion and real intelligence as opposed to those robotic doctors. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Recently the HSE recruited doctors from Pakistan and India offering 95000 Euros gross salary per annum for SHO and 116000 Euros per annum for Registrars. Can anybody here please clarify the net earnings for this post after paying all the taxes and everything. Is this amount of money worth flying to Ireland and working in such a hectic and stressful environment? Somewhere here mentioned they are not even paid for the overtime. Thats quite disappointing. No wonder the HSE are emailing us daily and dying to make us join the contract by 11th July.

Dear Sir,
I am writing about the shortage of doctors in emergency department. I am a medical doctor from Pakistan. I have a refugee status in Ireland. My qualifications have been recognised by the National Qualification of Ireland. My Ref: CK14082006/H439. On the Irish National Framework of qualification. They gave me level 7. I did work in emergency department in fazle-Omar hospital, Rabwah and Liaquat university of medical and health sciences, Jamshoro, Pakistan, as a medical doctor. I want to work in Ireland. I submitted all documents to medical council for registration. My Reference No: 402050 I am living for 6 years. Please give me permission for registration. I waiting for medical council decision.
Dr Saleem