Some posts for hospital doctors will remain unfilled from this weekend despite moves by the Minister for Health and Children to ease the manpower shortage, doctors' organisations forecast yesterday. Non-consultant hospital doctors' contracts change on Friday, and by yesterday 110 places were still unfilled.
Doctors' organisations have been calling on Mr Martin to bring forward an amendment to allow non-EU doctors to extend their training in the State by two years to reduce the manpower shortfall. Yesterday's announcement that they are to be allowed to stay for seven years instead of five was welcomed by the Irish Medical Organisation, which represents NCHDs.
However, the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association suggested it was too little too late. "The biggest problem is that many hospitals will have more than one vacancy, and some will have no junior doctor in their casualty department or in anaesthetics," it said.
The association called on the Minister to "direct that services be reduced in certain hospitals until sufficient junior doctors can be recruited. In some instances, this will mean closing casualty departments and diverting ambulance services."
The IMO was more optimistic. It said that the new legislation together with the new deal for NCHDs which emerged from recent negotiations would mean more doctors would stay in Irish hospitals. However, it, too, said there would be a shortage of NCHDs from Saturday and this "will cause difficulties in particular specialities and in certain hospitals for NCHDs and consultants".
Last week Mr Martin seemed to be opposing the idea of extending the registration of foreign doctors in training from five to seven years. He said the Medical Council, which provides temporary registration for the non-EU doctors concerned, was an independent statutory body. He also repeated the council's view that temporary registration was to al low non-EU doctors to get training and not to supply manpower.
Yesterday's about-turn drew a cautious reaction from the Medical Council, which said it "hopes that such changes will not alter the fundamental purpose of temporary registration, which is to train doctors who wish to come to Ireland from outside the EU".
In all, 900 doctors hold temporary registration, the council said. The number of non-EU doctors in training in the State was halved when a requirement was introduced in 1996 that doctors who wanted to take up temporary registration should undergo an assessment of their competence.
Mr Martin said in a statement yesterday that "by extending the temporary registration period from five to seven years, we can ensure that we have enough NCHDs within our hospitals system to guarantee that we can continue to provide the best possible health services for patients".
There are 3,000 NCHD posts, and all but 110 were filled yesterday, "and the Minister expects further posts to be filled as the July 1st deadline approaches".