One in five consultant posts now vacant as waits soar
:: Psychiatry is worst hit specialty
THE lack of medical specialists to treat public patients has worsened – with one in five posts now vacant or unfilled as waiting lists soar, it has emerged.
There are 728 jobs for hospital and community care consultants without a permanent specialist – 45pc more than previously counted, it was revealed.
The worst hit area of the country for lack of hospital specialists is the south and south-west – Cork, Waterford, Kerry, south Tipperary and Kilkenny where there are 117 vacancies and waiting lists of 138,748 patients, according to the survey by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA).
The discontent among doctors comes as HSE public health specialists, who are key
to managing the pandemic and voted in favour of industrial action, meet today to decide the timeline for the roll-out of the threatened action.
The public health doctors in the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) want action on their long-running campaign to have the same status and pay of hospital consultants – involving a salary rise from around €113,000 to between €141,000 to €195,000.
The IHCA is campaigning for an end to lower pay for newly recruited specialists in place since 2012. It said the vacant consultant posts included doctors in hospitals and community, including psychiatrists.
“A total of 237 permanent consultant posts are vacant, with two of unknown status and likely vacant. A further 406 permanent consultant posts are filled by temporary and locum consultants, with an additional 83 posts filled on an agency basis.
“It was previously believed approximately 500 consultant posts were vacant or unfilled on a permanent basis,” the IHCA said.
The worst hit speciality is psychiatry with 32pc of posts vacant followed by a lack of 29pc in doctors in emergency medicine to cover A&Es.
Significantly, in light of the pandemic, 27pc of posts for intensive care specialists – nine posts – are without a permanent doctor. The rest are spread among medicine, paediatrics, pathology, radiology and surgery.
When it comes to specialists in the community outside of hospital, the highest number of vacancies are in Dublin followed by Kerry and Cork.
Commenting on the figures Alan Irvine, IHCA president, said: “This data confirms that Ireland’s ability to provide quality, timely care to patients is worsening. Over 600,000 people require specialist medical treatment but our system is not providing the permanent specialist expertise to care for them.
“A major part of this problem is a direct result of this country’s ongoing consultant recruitment and retention crisis, which is continuing throughout the worst disease pandemic in a century.
“Reduced availability of specialist care means longer stays in hospital beds, which are already in critically short supply. We have welcomed the additional investment in hospital beds but without the permanent specialists to care for these patients, waiting times will get longer and longer as the evidence shows.
“Short-term measures to temporarily fill gaps is both expensive and unreliable. Medical agency costs have doubled. The employment of 117 doctors who are not on the Medical Council Specialist Register, has contributed to a four-fold increase in medical indemnity claims.”
He said the 2012 entrants’ pay cut generated a loss of “hundreds of millions of euro per year and patients are not getting the care they need”.