Re Foreign Doctors
According to Prof. Ruairi Brugha, RCSI Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine:

“We need high level recognition of the scale of the problem and we need radical responses,given the time and type of hospitals needed to train hospital 1

specialists.
Currently, Irish hospitals are employing increasing numbers of foreign-trained doctors into posts that don’t provide these doctors with an adequate level of supervised training. This is not good for patients, or for these doctors’ careers.2)

"The high turnover of such doctors confirms earlier research which shows that international recruitment is not an effective strategy; and many of those recruited are leaving Ireland for the same reasons that Irish doctors leave, a process we describe as: brain gain,3)

followed by brain waste, ending with brain drain. This involves firstly a brain gain through the recruitment of non-EU trained foreign doctors. Then ‘brain waste’ through slow or stagnant career progression for these individuals leading to deskilling, and 4)

finally ‘brain drain’ through the onward migration of these doctors, mainly to other wealthy countries.”

The report states that Ireland needs effective retention measures to achieve medical workforce sustainability and to comply with our global responsibilities not to 5)

recruit doctors from poorer countries that can ill afford to lose their doctors. This means providing better working conditions (shorter and more flexible working hours); better terms and conditions (including equitable salary levels for new consultants); and more attractive 6)

training and clearer career paths for the doctors we produce.

Africa contributes the highest number of doctors with 28% and Pakistan supplies more than 20% of Ireland’s foreign-trained doctors. An important new pattern is the growth in the numbers of doctors trained in other 7)

European Union (EU) countries, which now represent 20% of foreign trained doctors. Graduates of medical schools in Romania, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic included not only nationals from these countries, but many non-EU nationals and a significant number of 8)

Irish nationals.
(22nd June 2017) 9)
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