‘After working for 29 hours...I drove home and crashed my car’: Doctors leaving Ireland due to hours and 'negativity'
Doctors say they have left Ireland because of “inordinate” responsibility, hours so long that one crashed his car on the way home from work, and a “climate of negativity”, according to a study.
It also found more than half have no intention of returning to work here, with the research concluding: “Respondent doctors are exiting the Irish health system because of a deterioration in medical job quality to the point of extremity.”
The research by a team including members from the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Dublin City University Business School, Cardiff Business School, the Royal College of Surgeons, and the School of Nursing in DCU, involved interviews with 40 Irish emigrant doctors in Australia and found that just 14 intend to return.
It found: “The dynamics of doctor emigration changed, post-2008, as the Irish health system endured ‘radical resource cuts’, including a 13% reduction in both staffing levels and acute hospital beds and significant pay reductions.
"Salaries for new entrant hospital consultants were reduced by 10% in 2011 and by a further 30% in 2012.
“A 2018 court settlement further widened the salary differential between existing and new entrant hospital consultants.
“Only 14 out of 40 respondents intend to return to work in the Irish health system, indicating, firstly, the extent to which the traditional pattern of return migration has changed and, secondly, the extent to which doctor emigration [without return] poses a significant risk to the Irish health system.”
Speaking about their experiences, one respondent said: “My very first week as an intern, I did 80 hours... spread across five days.”
Another said the atmosphere was “just not a nice environment”.
According to one interviewee: “After working for 29 hours... straight... I got maybe an hour or two sleep, and then my boss asked me to operate with him... I went to operate with him, but then I drove home and crashed my car”.
Another said: “I felt like I spent my whole day putting out fires. I didn’t ever get on top of the workload.”
Another said: “After hours, which is the scariest bit... you’re pretty much left on your own.
"I remember running around the hospital with ECG’s, trying to find a senior doctor to just, ‘Would you mind looking at this? I think this person’s really sick.’... when you’re doing 24-hour call, and you’re just running around for 24 hours putting out fires and just keeping them alive until Monday. It would scare you.”
According to another: “It’s probably just part and parcel of being an intern, but I met friends of mine crying in side rooms off of wards just in bits about what just happened.”
The study concluded that job quality could be improved at five levels, including access to rest breaks, providing doctors with a safe work environment, and access to job security, showing appreciation and adequately compensating doctors and enabling them to contribute to medicine to the best of their ability.
