We need to keep our doctors - Gurn

Cllr Felim Gurn asked why "we continue to train doctors who graduate yearly through our colleges who are paid by the state" saying that he understood that out of class of 120 graduate doctors, 90 emigrated to "help out in other health care jurisdictions due to better pay and conditions and less stress in a broken health care system in Ireland."

Speaking at this week's Regional Health Forum West last week, he asked: "Can we try to retain them by putting in place, like the NHS, where graduate doctors have to stay in the health care system for a minimum of two years before going to other health care jurisdictions."

In response, Tony Canavan, CEO, Saolta University Health Care Group said that medical doctor graduates work for one year in Ireland to complete an internship while in the UK, this period is two years. 
"In Ireland it was decided that graduating to the next stage of training after one year is better for the doctor and patient and reduces training by a year such that doctors are able to provide full care with less total years in training."

He continued that many doctors travel for one (and sometimes two) years to Australia and New Zealand after their intern year; however the data shows that over 85% return to train in Ireland and provide care to the Irish population.

He noted that training duration is on average seven years of clinical service and of those doctors completing training (to consultant level) approximately two out of three are working in Ireland five years later. "While the health service would aspire to 100% retention this would not be realistic."

Mr Canavan said there are a number of initiatives - the new consultant contract has removed any pay inequalities and "is an attractive contract with interest from doctors in other jurisdictions (including UK)."

He also noted that the "Minister has established a taskforce to recommend actions to improve working and training conditions for all Non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs)" and the HSE are exploring advanced practice for non-doctor clinicians to improve care and support NCHDs.

He said increasing the internship from one to two years would likely "negatively impact on the longer term retention of doctors and likely result in many fewer choosing to return to Ireland.

He said that Galway University Hospital (GUH) education and training supports have expanded with a newly appointed Saolta Group Director for Doctor Education and Training and has developed a hub and spoke model for the group.