Dr. Peadar Gilligan:

One of the greatest frustrations for doctors in the Irish system is that they come to work and they are not facilitated in the delivery of that work. My emergency department colleagues and I struggle to find a space in which to see patients. Our surgical colleagues upstairs often tell me they have not been able to bring in a patient for an operation because there is no bed available in the hospital. Our anaesthetics colleagues will say they do not have the intensive care beds they need for all the patients requiring critical care within the hospital system. Our rehabilitation specialists say they do not have the bed base they need. In all these cases, people's frustration is really around the fact they want to deliver care. Having spent 14 years in many cases to get to the first year of a consultant role, they are met with challenges in the delivery of that care that really should not still be the case in a modern country. If we could address the ability of doctors to deliver the care they want to deliver, a lot of the frustrations would evaporate as a result. Our failure to do that will mean those frustrations continue.