HSE says recruitment of 50 emergency department doctors being ‘expedited’

The Health Service Executive says it is “expediting” the recruitment of 50 additional emergency department consultants promised by Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly.

Temporary recruitment to the posts, promised last August, is under way, it said.

Twenty non-consultant doctors and 101 ED nurses are also being recruited to help relieve overcrowding.

At its annual conference in Co Cavan, the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine welcomed the additional staff, but said this alone would not solve the problems faced by hospitals.

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“The reason so many patients are on trolleys and there are such long delays for admission to hospital is that there isn’t enough acute bed capacity in the system,” said IAEM president Dr Fergal Hickey.

A lack of hospital beds is the main reason for overcrowding in the health system, Mr Hickey told the conference.

“While the minister’s initiative will provide better care for patients it will not solve the trolley problem.”

While some ED doctors are approaching the end of their specialist training and would be available for recruitment, others will have to recruited from abroad.

Mr Hickey said many of his members were looking at “other (work) alternatives, either here or elsewhere” in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Junior doctors were going to Australia early in their career, which meant they were less likely to return to Ireland.

He said ED doctors are concerned for the coming winter, due to an expectation of flu and Covid-19 waves coming on top of year-round high trolley numbers.