NCHDs play a vital role in the delivery of the country’s health services but it’s a role which is unappreciated and undervalued by the policymakers and HSE managers.

Fundamentally there is a disconnect between the attitude of the HSE to NCHDs as cost-effective highly skilled labour to staff hospitals without due regard to career planning on the one hand  and the aspirations of NCHDs themselves on the other for whom their time as NCHDs is a critical step on their career path during which they expect to receive training and critical hands-on experience leading to a specialist post. Add in an absolute disregard by the hospital management for the NCHD contract of employment and appropriate working conditions and the consequences are as inevitable as they are damaging; a crisis in morale amongst NCHDs best exemplified by the finding of the IMO Benchmark Survey 2011 that 57% of NCHDs would NOT recommend a career as an NCHD to a family member. This crisis in morale together with poor manpower planning by the HSE directly leads to NCHDs travelling abroad in order to complete their specialist training while the Irish health services are left tackling a doctor shortage which threatens the ability of many hospitals to continue to function.