Naas General Hospital paid junior doctors £80 an hour - just under £1,000 for every 12 hours worked - for weekend work in July and part of August to avoid shutting its casualty department, the South Western Area Health Board has confirmed.
The casualty department, which sees nearly 28,000 patients a year, came under threat when the Irish Medical Council withdrew recognition from certain posts for training purposes that did not meet its criteria.
The Medical Council insists that non-EU doctors' training needs must be met adequately by Irish hospitals and the doctors should not be seen as a source of labour. Under a new policy, it has told hospitals it will not provide temporary registration for these doctors to work in posts not accredited for training.
Some hospitals and health boards are concerned that the policy will increase their problems in filling posts.
Some posts at Naas did not meet the Medical Council criteria. However, the South Western Area Health Board (which covers parts of Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow) argued that when its new hospital at Naas was built it would be able to meet the requirements. The hospital building was started last December.
The Medical Council gave Naas a six-month reprieve until July but then withdrew temporary registration from certain posts.
In a letter to the Eastern Regional Health Authority, released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act, the health board assistant chief executive, Mr Seamus O'Brien, said the hospital might have to close its casualty department "and significantly reduce the level of surgical service being provided".
With non-EU doctors no longer available for the particular posts, the only other option was to employ doctors from the European Union who did not need temporary registration from the Medical Council.
This has now been done but - as first reported in this week's Irish Medical Times - in the meantime the hospital was forced to keep its casualty department going with the weekend services, at £80 an hour, of doctors "borrowed" from other hospitals.
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