Newly qualified doctors should be guaranteed three years work in Irish system — Burke

A conference will today hear that newly qualified junior doctors should spend at least three of their first five years working in Irish hospitals.

Senator Colm Burke is among those addressing the inaugural National Intern Conference in University College Cork

Mr Burke is putting forward the proposal as a way of stemming the “brain drain” of newly qualified doctors leaving the country.

Yesterday, it emerged that 100 to 120 NCHD posts are vacant.

A survey of final-year medical students in 2012 indicated that 6.4% planned to move to the UK and 38% said they wanted to work outside of Ireland and Britain.

More than one third of those surveyed said they did not see themselves working in Ireland in a decade’s time.

Mr Burke said the current system is “too disjointed” and that both medical students here and the HSE needed to agree on a set period of time after qualification in which work would be conducted in the Irish system.

“You would want a commitment from the student that they will work for three of the first five years after graduation,” he said.

“To balance that, the HSE needs to commit to providing a three year contract, or an intern year and a two year contract. You cannot have one without the other.”

Mr Burke, the keynote speaker at the UCC conference, said there needed to be reductions in the working hours of non-consultant hospital doctors in an environment that seeks to “strike a balance” between an individual’s desire to work overseas for a period and a commitment to the Irish educational sector that train doctors in the first place.

Other speakers at the conference include consultant rheumatologist at Cork University Hospital Prof Mick Molloy and Galway-based consultant rheumatologist, Dr Ronan Kavanagh.

lnationalinternconf.com