PATIENTS WILL suffer and hospital departments will close unless structural reform of the Irish hospital system takes place that will end the over- reliance on junior doctors.
The warning comes from the chairman of the Irish Medical Organisation’s Non-Consultant Hospital Doctor (NCHD) committee, Dr Mark Murphy, who said yesterday that junior doctors were “demoralised and disenfranchised”.
Dr Murphy was responding to figures on overtime payments made to junior doctors last year, showing that the top overtime-earning junior doctor was a registrar at Roscommon County Hospital who received €135,100.
Figures released by the HSE in response to a Freedom of Information request show that six junior doctors from the HSE South area – three working at Cork University Hospital and three at Kerry General Hospital – featured among the top 10 overtime earners.
In all, 15 junior doctors received in excess of €100,000 in overtime payments last year. The figures show that in total the HSE paid €177 million in overtime across all sectors of the service in 2010 compared with €192.8 million in 2009.
Dr Murphy said: “I’m sure that the doctor at Roscommon hospital lived at the hospital for the majority of the year and was working in excess of 100 hours some weeks. Working long hours like that imposes huge personal sacrifices.”
A senior house officer at Sligo General Hospital, Dr Murphy was yesterday finishing a working week totalling 83 hours. “I firmly believe that my capacity to deliver good patient care is diminished by the long hours I work and there were several examples in the 83 hours where my judgment and capacity to make decisions was a little bit impaired and that troubles me personally. Working in a fatigued state worries me,” he said.
Dr Murphy said the health system faced a shortage of 400 junior doctors next July.
