Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

GP trainees are trained in the system they are going to be working in. Unfortunately, for the past number of years, there have been nothing but decimating cuts to the services being provided and the resourcing of general practice. When one is training as a GP, one is working for a GP trainer who is a principal GP in a practice. One spends one's time rotating through two practices, often a rural and an urban one. When one sees GPs struggling, it is very hard for one to envisage oneself working in that job until the day that one retires. That is very disheartening for GP trainees. We have done a study through the ICGP, the Bridging the Gap study, which was authored by Dr. Gerry Mansfield, Dr. Claire Collins and Dr. Margaret O'Riordan. The study looks at recent GP graduates and trainees and what they were planning on doing on leaving their schemes or what they had done since leaving. The results are not encouraging. They are very worrying and, unfortunately, despite the fact that these reports have been placed in the public domain and presented to the HSE and the Department of Health, they have not been acted on or responded to. We know that approximately 50% of our current GP trainees will leave after they are trained.