Ms Susan Clyne:

Doctors are human. They are sometimes patients themselves and they may have family members who are patients. My doctor colleagues will speak to their personal experiences in this regard. Burnout in the profession is well evidenced in our own literature and in other national literature. The international evidence of burnout among doctors is overwhelming. Contractually, all HSE employees can avail of counselling. There is a lot of talk about mental health but whether there is a lot of support is a slightly different matter. There are structures for support. Doctors are not different from the rest of society in that they are reluctant to self-identify as needing help and to seek the help they need. Doctors, very often, attend work at a very high rate when they are ill. That is just a normal thing. It is about not letting down their patients and colleagues.

We have run a survey for the past three years measuring the levels of stress and burnout among doctors and pointing them in the direction of the support services. We are seeing no decrease in those levels. Obviously, if people are feeling demoralised or frustrated, working in a pressurised environment every day will feed into that. I do not want to say doctors are never happy or that they are unfit. They are fit to work and they do a great job. However, they are facing what we would say are unnecessary pressures, and pressures that could be removed. My medical colleagues will speak to the burnout issue. The idea of doctors sitting down together for a whole lunch hour might be a bit of a stretch.