THE MEDICAL Council still does not have the necessary information to allow it to register junior doctors who arrived in the country since August, a Dáil committee heard yesterday.
Caroline Spillane, chief executive of the Medical Council, said it had agreed with the HSE that if hospital managers proposed doctors for examinations “immediately” and the doctors supplied the necessary documentation, examinations could then be held to allow doctors be registered “as soon as possible”.
At least 80 doctors, recruited by the HSE to fill vacant posts in public hospitals are in Ireland and are waiting to sit examinations in their specialty before they can be registered with the Medical Council and be allowed to work.
They are currently being fed in the canteens of the hospitals to which they have been assigned. Ms Spillane said 266 doctors who came to Ireland in July and August sat specialty exams and 236 passed. Six doctors arrived in time to sit the exams but were not accommodated. And “a number” of doctors also came to Ireland after the exams.
“At present we do not have the necessary information relating to candidates who arrived in Ireland since August to allow them to be registered,” she said.
The council and the HSE had now signed an arrangement for the registration of junior doctors, she added.
