Reports confirm growing crisis amongst doctors and serious threat to health and safety of both doctors and patients
Medical Council publishes research on doctors in the health service workforce
Reports confirm growing crisis amongst doctors and serious threat to health and safety of both doctors and patients
IMO President – “Reports confirm that too much is being demanded of too few”
Tuesday 29 th July 2024. The President of the Irish Medical Organisation, Dr.
Anne Dee, has welcomed the publication today of a series of reports on the medical
workforce published by the Medical Council.
Dr. Dee said that the reports provide independent confirmation of what the IMO has
long warned of – a growing crisis amongst doctors in Ireland with too much being
demanded of too few doctors leading to growing risks for the health and safety of
both patients and doctors.
Dr. Dee said that the reports should serve as a warning that our doctors are working
in intolerable conditions, that they are frequently required to work longer than
allowed under the European Working Time Directive. While 37.1% of doctors on the
trainee specialist register are working in excess of 48 hours per week our own
surveys suggest the figures are much higher with 70% of NCHDS working illegal
hours. There is an additional crisis emerging for the health services as so many of
our GPs and doctors in general are close to retirement age.
Dr. Dee said: “These reports represent alarms ringing in various key areas of the
medical workforce – our youngest doctors routinely being forced to work excessive
hours, our consultants and GPs being frustrated in attempts to bring a new
generation of doctors without the protected time they need to provide training
“One of the inevitable consequences of these pressures is the high number of
doctors leaving the Irish system, some for extended periods and some for good. In
addition to action to prevent these departures, the HSE need to conduct their own
detailed interviews of those leaving the system to understand fully why they are
doing so and what we can do to address it.”
“Ultimately these reports confirm the need for a comprehensive fully-funded
workforce plan with accompanying recruitment and retention measures.”