Sir, – The chief executive of the HSE Paul Reid believes that targeting 5,500 extra staff for the health service, rather than 10,000 provided for in the HSE’s budget for this year, is the right process and is “reflective of what is happening in the market”.
It is highly regrettable that not only the recruitment target would be cut by almost half for this year, but also that the target itself has allegedly been branded as “fake” from within the Department of Health.
We are experiencing a sustained and significant recruitment and retention crisis across the entire health service at present, which is having a hugely negative effect on patient care across specialties.
For example, in my own specialty, we need a minimum of 835 consultant psychiatrists to adequately meet demand. At present, there are approximately 495 consultant psychiatrist posts in Ireland, and 25 per cent of those are currently unfilled or staffed on a temporary basis.
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In the meantime, between 276 and 350 specialist psychiatrists will retire or leave the services over the next 10 years.
Meanwhile, our junior doctors are overworked and underappreciated, and are emigrating in their droves to health systems that truly value their skills and offer a much better work-life balance than we do here in Ireland.
We are beyond breaking point, and regrettably it does not appear that there is any real will to address this crisis. We have not seen a meaningful, transparent national plan for implementing change. The current funding for training doctors to be specialists in psychiatry is ¤600,000 short of what is needed – and total funding for mental health services – at 5.6 per cent of the overall health budget – is wholly inadequate.
A workforce planning policy document for psychiatrists covering the period from 2020 to 2028 has been published. However, a critically important, research-based document drafted by the College of Psychiatrists and HSE National Doctors Training and Planning (NDTP), called Consultant Psychiatrists – Recruitment and Retention, which sets out the issues facing the health service and a coherent plan for implementing change, has inexplicably not been published. This needs to happen to set out a roadmap for real progress.
The real losers in this situation are patients, and it is for their sake that we need urgent reform to revive our ailing health system. – Yours, etc,
Dr WILLIAM FLANNERY,
Consultant Psychiatrist,
President,
College of Psychiatrists
of Ireland,
Dublin 2.