Junior doctors from abroad have yet to sit exams

SOME 85 overseas junior doctors, brought in to fill vacancies in the public hospital system, are still waiting to sit exams to allow them register with the Medical Council, the Health Service Executive has said. Most of the doctors are living in Ireland in accommodation provided by the hospitals to which they have been assigned. This has cost over €80,000 so far.

Some of doctors have had no income for up to 10 weeks.

The Medical Council is due to meet the HSE this week to discuss scheduling exams for them.

The executive offered junior doctor posts to 293 doctors, mainly from India and Pakistan, to fill vacancies that became available on July 11th, as part of the junior doctor six-monthly rotations. In July and August, the doctors came to Ireland to sit exams to allow them become registered with the Medical Council, a prerequisite for practising in Ireland.

A list of doctors who would sit the exams was provided by the HSE to the Medical Council on July 28th.

Between August 2nd and 12th, 266 sat the speciality exams for the Medical Council’s newly created supervised division on its register.

Six doctors who arrived on time but whose names were not on the HSE list could not be accommodated by the council to sit the exams.

Other doctors arrived after the exams were held and are still waiting to take them. Approximately 30 of the doctors failed the exams and are waiting to resit them.

The HSE brought in the 293 doctors to fill 190 vacancies. It said the additional doctors, once registered, would “present the HSE with a significant opportunity to reduce overtime and agency costs”.

Speaking to The Irish Timesyesterday, one of the doctors, who is waiting to sit exams for the first time, said he and his colleagues are fearful the second set of exams are being delayed to coincide with the next six-month rotation of junior doctors in January.

In the country since early August, after giving up his job at home, he said he is emotionally, mentally and physically drained by his experiences here.

He has been fed in the hospital canteen since he arrived and finds it difficult to tolerate the food. He left his wife, three children, mother and grandmother at home, all of whom are financially dependent on him.

“They are living on my savings at the moment,” he said.

He was offered his post on July 8th and told to get to Ireland by July 11th. Doctors were “emotionally blackmailed” into coming to Ireland as quickly as possible, he claimed.

“We were told we wouldn’t get a good job if we didn’t hurry and that we would be sent to the farthest posts,” he said.

The doctor said he had worked in Saudi Arabia and all the paperwork was done before he left his home.

“Once you reached the airport there, they started you on a salary,” he said.

Ireland was giving the impression of being “a very disorganised country” and was “being disgraced”, he said.