Overworked juniors are ‘falling asleep at wheel’

Overworked junior doctors are falling asleep in their cars and risking major accidents because of the excessive hours they are being forced to endure.

Senior officials in the Irish Medical Organisation have raised concerns over the safety of both the public and their members as a result of single shifts lasting up to 56 hours, which are in breach of EU rules dating back almost 20 years.

Speaking at the union’s AGM in Killarney, Co Kerry, the non-consultant hospital doctors group chair and GP trainee at Sligo General, Mark Murphy, said patients are being put at serious risk because of the shift-length crisis.

He said that even outside of the hospital setting, the “horrendous” work times pose an equally dangerous threat to both doctors and the public at large.

“I myself have fallen asleep in a car driving, when it was stopped at a traffic light. It is a very obvious conclusion to say that road traffic risk is increased because of fatigue, and I do know of cases of friends of mine who have crashed cars,” he said.

“There is international data about road traffic accidents, needle stick injuries [and the link to excessive hospital shifts], but I would go further. There is an impact on social life that has far-reaching psychological and physical health consequences on doctors. In any other organisation, an occupational health review would take place.”

Dr Murphy’s call was supported by IMO honorary secretary and fellow junior doctor Matt Sadlier, who called on the Health Information and Quality Authority to investigate.

“It is a health and safety issue, HIQA are the body that’s responsible for health and safety issues within hospitals and we would appreciate their input into the debate. I’ve worked at hospitals in the last year where we’ve done two-day weekends, which means you start on a Saturday morning and you ended on a Monday evening. So that’s 56 hours continuous,” he said.

The failure to address the excessive junior doctor working times has been raised with all Irish governments by the European Commission since 1997.

However, despite repeated warnings of significant EC fines and potential European court hearings over the matter, little has changed in that time.

In September, the commission ordered Ireland to provide a detailed plan on how to lower the workload. In January, a month after the deadline for this plan, the Department of Health released a document outlining how this will take place by 2015.

The European working time directive, introduced in Aug 2004, requires at least one 15-minute break every four-and-a-half hours; 11 hours’ rest every 24 hours; and a 35-hour rest period at least once a week.

Ireland has never complied with this policy.