Not enough consultants in A&Es if salaries cut

There won’t be enough senior doctors to run the country’s emergency departments if the Government implements its plan to cut new consultants’ salaries by 30%, according to the Irish Committee for Emergency Medicine Training.

In a hard-hitting letter to the Department of Health, consultants speak of the “perilous state of emergency care” and warn “the future of emergency medicine in this country is in jeopardy”.

They predict that existing emergency departments at the country’s bigger hospitals will face closure if there aren’t enough doctors who want to run them.