Donnelly unhappy with lack of medicine places in colleges, internal emails reveal
The Department of Health told colleagues in the Department of Further and Higher Education that the shortage of medical graduates needed to be 'addressed immediately'.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly was “not happy” with the provision of just a handful of extra places on college medicine courses for this academic year.
Internal emails reveal how the minister was deeply disappointed with plans for just a few more spaces and had wanted an additional 200 student places to be provided.
The Department of Health told colleagues in the Department of Further and Higher Education that the shortage of medical graduates needed to be “addressed immediately”.
An email to them said: “An increase of three places in 2021/22 is not adequate to meet future health workforce needs. Please clarify what actions are being taken by your department to address this issue.”
In internal emails, the Department of Further and Higher Education said requests for a significant number of extra places just a couple of months before the academic year was to begin did “not appear to be achievable”.
A message said: “Given physical constraints of the higher education institutions and their staffing requirements it doesn’t seem that there would be any potential to increase the overall number of places by the scale suggested.”
Officials also warned any effort to replace non-EU students with Leaving Cert students would create its own difficulties.
They said it would come with a “significant price tag” given students from overseas were paying far higher fees for the same courses.
The email said any case for ousting non-EU students in favour of CAO applicants would also need to be discussed with the Department of Public Expenditure.
An email said: “If the case were to be made … it would need to be made on the basis of a critical need of the health service.”
Later emails detail how the secretaries-general of both departments had discussed Mr Donnelly’s requests for extra places.
During the conversation, they had acknowledged the “required lead time in creating places” and that efforts should instead focus on the academic year to begin in September 2022.
In other emails, Department of Further and Higher Education officials told colleagues in Health that they were happy to try and increase capacity on medical courses.
However, they warned this required “significant planning with regard to physical capacity within our institutions including laboratory space, appropriate staffing, and adequate placement arrangements”.
It also said moves to increase the number of college spaces on other courses during the pandemic had been done through careful selection.
They said this could only be done where universities and colleges “had the capacity to fit additional places on short notice given their logistical challenges”.
However, increasing places on medical courses was nowhere near as simple even as Higher Education Minister Simon Harris had taken a “particular interest” in it.
An email said: “Unfortunately, the proposed number is the maximum number feasible under the current circumstances.”
It also said places for non-EU students had already been offered by the time suggestions were made to replace those students with CAO applicants.
Asked about the discussions, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health said Mr Donnelly remained strongly committed to building workforce capacity in healthcare.
She said active engagement on increasing medicine places continued in the context of the significant lead-in times involved in the education and training of health and social care workers.
The Department of Further and Higher Education said additional medical places in universities required additional clinical placements in hospitals to run alongside.
A spokesman said: “[We have] commenced detailed work last year with both the higher education sector and the Department of Health in order to increase medicine places in 2022.
“Engagement with the university sector has taken place at the highest level to secure additional provision and good progress has been achieved. An update on expanded places will be available shortly.”
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