Dr. John-Paul Byrne:

The Deputy is right there are issues at the administrative level. There are also issues in the career structure. Our research has found issues in both. The problem we find from the experience of our doctors is the professional issues, whether they be hierarchy, competitiveness or the idea that doctors cannot be patients and must be invulnerable, are organisationally reinforced when there are so many gaps in the system. Part of the medical culture is that doctors tend not to be sick and try to be in as much as possible. This is part of medical culture throughout the world. We have spoken to many doctors who feel guilt at having to be out sick. They know that because of the lack of resources in their team, if they are out for one day it completely changes the workload and there is overload for their team. The guilt might be a particularly Irish issue. From our experience, many doctors speak about the guilt of being out. This is an administrative issue and a professional issue.