James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

The issue of non-consultant hospital doctor numbers in our hospitals is one that creates a major difficulty for us and is being addressed in a fairly aggressive fashion at present through recruitment from abroad to make up the shortfall. There is every reason to believe this will be successful. Part of the problem with regard to non-consultant hospital doctors is with regard to their training. Sometimes they prefer to see on their curriculum vitae the names of large regional hospitals rather than smaller hospitals. One of the methods of dealing with this is an initiative undertaken by Dr. John Higgins in Cork. Rather than joining a CUH surgery team, one joins a Cork, Kerry and south surgery team which allows people to be placed throughout the system and rotate through smaller hospitals as well as gain experience at bigger hospitals. Participants are always under the one training team of surgeons who also rotate through the hospitals. If this model were to be repeated in Roscommon it would go a long way to solving the problems we have. Written Answers follow Adjournment Debate.

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