Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am concerned about a letter issued by the human resources section of the Health Service Executive, HSE, to all hospitals advising them that an agency doctor can only be employed for a period of two months in a hospital. There is a huge problem because this year over €250 million will be spent on agency staff in hospitals, many of whom are junior doctors. In many smaller hospitals junior doctors comprise over 50% of all the doctors in the hospital. If this proposal is implemented, people will simply leave the country. This is not the way to do it.

I am also concerned that the letter was signed by somebody who is leaving the HSE to take up a job with another State organisation. The letter has been written and I am concerned that people will hide behind it in the next few months. We have a problem with the retention of doctors, not only Irish doctors but doctors who come here from abroad. The letter is certainly not the way to deal with the problem. There is a lack of consistency on the part of the HSE in dealing with it and a lack of long-term planning.

The previous Minister commissioned the MacCraith report, but nothing has been done to implement its recommendations. The HSE has simply left it on the shelf; it is just another report from within the HSE and the Department of Health. I am extremely concerned about the letter issued to hospital managements in this manner and the problems it will cause in the next few months. I ask the Leader to bring it to the attention of the Minister for Health and invite him to come to the House to discuss a three, four or five year plan to deal with the shortage of junior doctors in the hospital system.