EFFORTS BY hospitals in the northeast to fill junior doctor posts by offering them terms and conditions different to those in other regions have persisted despite the efforts of HSE management, it has emerged.
The HSE Dublin North East region has been seeking to recruit junior doctors or non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs) in anaesthetics and paediatrics to “permanent” posts which would command salaries of €120,000 a year for a 50-hour week.
But the HSE centrally, in an effort to fill a large number of vacancies for junior doctors, is pursuing a different strategy, offering to pay applicants’ visa, registration and 12-weeks’ accommodation costs but on the basis of two-year contracts. These, while not permanent, would be an improvement on the current situation whereby junior doctors, who rotate posts every six months as part of their training, are only given six-month contracts.
The move by the HSE in the northeast region to offer preferential terms and conditions has angered HSE national director of human resources Seán McGrath.
In correspondence seen by The Irish Times, he said the HSE in Dublin North East, which is one of the regions worst hit by junior doctor shortages, had been repeatedly told there was no sanction whatsoever for their approach but it was continuing to persist.
He said management in the northeast region had been told on November 23rd and earlier this month that advertising junior doctor posts on a permanent basis and with revised terms and conditions represented a breach of Labour Court decisions and the 2010 NCHD contract and “put at risk” the HSE’s ability at national level to proceed with its new approach to attracting junior doctors to vacant posts.
There was also a risk, he wrote, of the northeast region incentivising junior doctors to leave posts in other regions, creating difficulties elsewhere. “We cannot have a situation where different terms, conditions and incentives on offer in different areas result in the transfer of NCHD vacancies from one region to the next,” he said.
Despite the warnings issued, and a commitment by the HSE North East that it would desist from its own approach, the HSE’s national human resources office continued to receive complaints up to December 8th from hospitals around the State saying staff were leaving to work in more attractive jobs in the northeast, he added.
Junior doctors in Portlaoise and Wexford had indicated to their employers they were leaving to work in Drogheda. “The ensuing recruitment difficulties in those hospitals could result in the cessation of acute care in both Wexford and Portlaoise from mid-January,” Mr McGrath wrote.
On December 8th, Wexford hospital had reported to him that four out of five of their junior doctors in anaesthesia “had been offered posts in Drogheda with a base salary of €120,000 for a 50-hour week”. Mr McGrath said in his letter that while HSE Dublin North East had “repeatedly been asked to cease, they appear to be continuing without regard for the consequences of or the lack of authorisation for their actions”.
There have been critical shortages of junior doctors at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.
Last July, when junior doctors last rotated posts, the hospital was only able to fill nine out of its 14 junior doctor posts in anaesthesia and a consultant anaesthetist said the level of anaesthetic cover that could be provided was “highly unsafe for patients and staff”.
At the beginning of this month 165 of 4,638 junior doctor posts were vacant but more vacancies are expected to occur when these doctors rotate jobs on January 1st.
In a statement yesterday, HSE Dublin North East said it still had vacancies for NCHDs in some key specialities. Contingency plans to deal with the potential shortage of doctors “will be subject to ongoing review and integration with the national system”, it said.