HSE will not retain extra intern posts brought in to combat Covid-19 

While all Irish medical graduates will be offered an internship under current rules, international final-year students must compete for a small number of places. Picture: Pexels

The HSE has said it will not retain the extra 300 medical intern posts put in place last year to deal with Covid-19.

In response to a campaign by graduating doctors to retain the extra intern posts, the health service said the additional posts were only introduced as an “emergency measure” and will not be retained this year.

A group of Irish and international medical students from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and UCD, who are nearing graduation, have launched a ‘Keep Our Doctors’ campaign to hold onto the extra posts and international graduates who have trained in Ireland.

An online petition, as part of the campaign, has to date secured more than 3,000 signatures.

While all Irish medical graduates will be offered an internship under current rules, international final-year students must compete for a small number of places.

Growing backlog

Isadora Lamego, a final year medical student at the RSCI, said the extra intern posts should be retained to help deal with the growing backlog across the health service.

Ms Lamego, who comes from California, said it would cost €9m to retain 300 interns but this was a drop in the ocean out of the €17bn and rising annual spend on health.

Given concerns that as many as 600 junior doctors may leave the health service this summer to work abroad, she said there was an opportunity to retain newly graduated doctors who have trained in the Irish system.

“The health service is currently at breaking point and our waiting lists are at record levels,” Ms Lamego said.

“Having more doctors will help everyone,” she added.

OECD data shows Ireland has the highest number of medical school graduates (excluding dentists, public health and epidemiologists) at 25 per 100,000 population.

“It’s a pity that Ireland trains so many well-educated doctors who are comfortable with the Irish system and who have trained entirely in the Irish system and instead of trying to hold onto any of them they let them go back home,” Ms Lamego said.

The HSE, however, has confirmed it has reverted to the “standard annual intake” of medical interns this year and that 734 posts will be filled this July.

The health service also pointed out that of 1,295 eligible medical intern candidates last year, more than 20% (303) did not take up the offer.

Emergency measure

A HSE spokesperson said: “At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, intern numbers were increased to deal with the service pressures. This increase was an emergency measure in direct response to the pandemic and it was not planned and was never intended to be sustained.” 

The number of approved consultant posts increased by 91 since August last year and an additional 106 postgraduate training places and 40 new Covid Era Senior Fellowship posts will be filled this summer, the HSE said.

“As we are coming out of the third wave of Covid-19 and facing increased waiting lists and other challenges the focus is on ensuring we have senior doctors to deal with the impact of Covid-19,” the HSE spokesperson said, adding that more consultants would be recruited under the 2021 service plan.