Dr. John-Paul Byrne:

By way of example one of the emergency department doctors we spoke to compared their experiences in Australia and Ireland working in similar sized emergency departments with similar patient numbers. They said that in Australia there were ten consultants, ten registrars and ten senior house officers. In Ireland in a similar sized emergency department there was one consultant, three or four registrars and three or four senior house officers. If the patient numbers are the same and they are the staffing numbers that are dealing with similar volumes of demands, of course that is going to lead to higher strain, workload stress and burn-out. We can only speak from the doctors' experience. Going back to the question about comparing Ireland and Australia, they are the experiences they are comparing. One was staffed appropriately but I have no idea of the efficiency of the emergency department system in Australia but from the doctors' experience it was a much more efficient system in Australia.