Over 100 foreign doctors sought for rural GP practices in bid to ease shortage

The Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) is aiming to attract at least 100 doctors from overseas to rural practices during 2023. It hopes the first wave of recruits to its new non-EU GP initiative will “act as ambassadors” for a scheme that could play a significant role in easing the medical care challenges faced by communities across the country.

The scheme, which is intended to help suitably qualified doctors from outside the European Union obtain the specialist registration they need to work as GPs in Ireland, is described by the ICGP’s medical director, Dr Diarmuid Quinlan, as “a short-term emergency response” to worsening shortages in rural areas.

It was revealed this week that the HSE had asked GPs to work additional hours in the coming weeks as hospitals struggle to cope with the rising numbers of Covid-19 and flu cases. However, Dr Quinlan said many doctors in rural Ireland were already having to cope with the impact of falling GP numbers on their day-to-day working lives.

[ Hospital emergency departments have become ‘warehouses’ of patients, IAEM says  ]

The fact that one in seven working GPs was over 65 meant many were retiring while others were leaving rural general practice due to the various challenges involved, Dr Quinlan said, adding that the situation was becoming a “self-perpetuating downward spiral” as working in particular areas was unattractive due to the expected workload.

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While the numbers of doctors being trained was rising, Dr Quinlan said “we are never going to train our way out of the current shortage”. He cited areas like Skibbereen and Cahersiveen which had lost a third or more of their GPs in recent years and said the HSE was having to spend increasing amounts on the provision of locum services.

The new scheme will specifically encourage doctors, many of whom are expected to be South African, to work in rural areas by providing both educational and practical supports during two years of supervised working, at the end of which it is hoped they will fully qualify as GPs in the Irish system and stay in their new communities.

The first group of 18 doctors who joined the scheme will begin work by February and a further 30 registered before Christmas via the ICGP website’s portal. The aim, however, is to attract “in excess of 100 in 2023” and then build on that number.

The project has been supported with funding from the HSE which said last night there will be up to 200 places available on the scheme by the end of 2023 and that this, together with expanding GP training schemes “will make an important contribution in developing the sustainable service model into the future”.

Its support of the scheme follows a British study that looked at the countries with health services from which it might successfully recruit. It found that doctors in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa could most easily make the required transition, said Dr Quinlan, and the challenges faced by South African doctors in their own country were drawing them to the Irish scheme in the greatest numbers.

“It’s very much a global market when it comes to the medical workforce and we will welcome any doctor who meets our standards with open arms,” he said.

“It’s not that we’re going out canvassing, we are not going to South Africa or any other country and saying ‘come to Ireland’ but we need to make Ireland attractive for GPs who have decided to leave their own country.

“So the programme has very strict entry criteria, these are already experienced GPs, with at least three years’ experience, who have also done certain hospital jobs. And we will offer them extensive educational and other supports working with host GP practices with a track record in education. Everything that is required to help them settle in the community; help with accommodation, childcare… we will do.

“Some of them may return to their home countries and that’s fantastic. But some of them, we hope, will embed in the local communities and certainly the doctors who I have spoken to from South Africa, they’ve left because of the real threat of serious personal violence. Most of them have said to me they have no intention of returning to live and work in South Africa which is very sad but we need to make working in Ireland attractive to them.”