Children’s hospital ‘will fail’ if ‘right people’ are not recruited, consultant says

The new €1 billion national children's hospital will fail unless it can attract top quality doctors who are currently dissuaded from returning to Ireland, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) conference has been told.

Gabrielle Colleran, a consultant paediatric radiologist at Temple Street and Holles Street hospitals, said the doctors were declining to come here because of the lower pay rates for newly-appointed medical specialists.

She said that, as of two weeks ago, difficulties in attracting specialists to work in the planned new facility had been placed on the risk register of the Children’s Hospital Group.

She warned that if sufficient consultants were not appointed, the new children’s hospital may not be able to open on schedule.

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The chief executives of the three children’s hospitals in Dublin recognised there was “a serious issue in attracting quality, highly qualified consultants who went on fellowship to north America and have stayed there,” she added.

Dr Colleran said such doctors earned far higher salaries abroad than in Ireland and traditionally had been prepared to take a pay cut to return home.

However, the 57 per cent pay differential that now existed between consultants appointed after 2012 and more longer-serving colleagues was “a push too far”.

“Our real concern is that we will not have enough people to staff the hospital to open it on time or, which could be worse, we will staff it with people who meet minimum eligibility criteria but we will not have a competitive process.”

She said: “If we do not get the right people, our hospital will fail and that is a tragedy”.

IHCA chief executive Martin Varley said with the first satellite centre for the new national children's hospital at Connolly Hospital in west Dublin due to open next June, the HSE had advertised for eight paediatric emergency medicine consultants.

He said he understood that there had been eight applications for the six posts. He said six of these eight applicants had indicated that they would only accept a post if pay parity was restored.

Minister of State at the Department of Health Jim Daly said he accepted the two-tier pay system for consultants was unfair and had to be addressed.

“If we do not invest in the people that work in hospitals in the appropriate manner, then we are not going to get the results.”

He said Dr Colleran had raised a really serious issue about competitiveness.

“If we do not have competition for these posts then standards will drop. There is no point in pretending otherwise. And we will result in settling for second best.”

Mr Daly said the undertaking from the Department of Health and the HSE on foot of the recent Public Service Pay Commission report - which identified that the recruitment and retention of consultants was an issue - was to work to try find a solution.

However, he said he could not set out a timeframe.

Mr Daly said the Government was committed to increasing the consultant workforce to support service delivery and to move to a consultant delivered service.

“Notwithstanding recruitment and retention challenges, the number of consultants employed in the public health services has increased by 118 in the 12 months to end August 2018 and by 479 in the past five years. We recognise however that this level of growth needs to be built on.

“The HSE is committed to improving the recruitment process, offering contracts to the Hospital Group rather than individual sites and focusing on family friendly arrangements.”

Mr Daly also said that while some progress had been made in dealing with out-patient waiting lists, there was “an enormous amount of work to be done”.

“The out-patient waiting list remains a big challenge. August 2018 waiting list figures show 514,585 waiting for a first outpatient appointment.

“While the total numbers on the OPD [out patients department] waiting list continues to grow, the figures show that a targeted approach by the HSE and hospital groups in late 2017 and into 2018 has impacted on the level of growth.

“The period January-August 2017 saw growth of 52,000 in total numbers. In comparison, the period January-August 2018 saw reduced growth of 13,785 new patients added to the list. But I say that while recognising there is an enormous amount of work to be done.”