Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 18 September 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Update on the CervicalCheck Screening Programme: Discussion

Mr. Damien McCallion:

On the medical side, we are trying to attract qualified people. It is a much longer journey and is very difficult for a single specialty. Discussions are ongoing with the medical workforce people about how we might try to create roles. That might mean that they have to be broader than just this specialty so we offer a number of specialties and might attract someone that way. That is one of the things we are doing around one post in the Coombe without getting into the international search. We are carrying out international searches and have one or two leads we are following up regarding people who may be interested in returning to this country on the medical side but they take time and must be harnessed and worked through to persuade someone to make that career choice to come back. The crisis brings additional challenges but we are working through them and are trying to attract people to those positions, particularly the medical posts.