Irish hospitals could soon face a shortage of surgeons, according to Mr Vincent Keaveny, vascular and general surgeon at St Vincent's University Hospital, Dublin.
"Increasingly in our own programmes we see trainees side-stepping to radiology, pathology and other areas which are less demanding in terms of working hours and length of training," he said.
Medical students start off with a sense of excitement about becoming surgeons and this excitement "is very obvious when they appear in the wards and in areas of patient contact".
But the excitement disappears thanks to a lengthy and sometimes dull training regime. Other factors, such as the fear of litigation, also play their part in deflecting students from surgery.
The problem is not only an Irish one. A recent meeting of the American College of Surgeons heard of a decline in numbers and unfilled training places in the US, Canada and elsewhere.
National blood stocks have fallen and the Irish Blood Transfusion Service is particularly low on the "negatives": O, A, B and AB negative. Stocks of A positive are also below required levels. There was a particularly large deficit in stocks of B negative yesterday.
Tralee General Hospital has achieved big cuts in waiting times this year in almost all areas. Waiting time on surgical lists fell from 8.75 years in January to 1.75 years in October and for ear, nose and throat treatment, from 104 weeks to 36 weeks. Waiting times in neurology fell from 104 weeks to 31. There is now no waiting time for obstetrics or paediatrics. In orthopaedics, the waiting time has fallen from 6.5 years to a still lengthy 2.25 years.
The number of patients waiting more than a year for treatment at St James's Hospital, Dublin, fell by 47 per cent last year, according to chief executive Mr John O'Brien, writing in the hospital's annual report. But, he says, demands on the hospital are so great and bed usage so high (each bed is occupied 96 per cent of the time on average) the increase in the numbers of people treated "is likely to have been accompanied at the expense of quality of service for individual patients". The hospital argues that it has never been given funding for the number of beds it needs.
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