BMA: 'NI is haemorrhaging doctors'
A senior doctor claims around 800 more consultants are needed here
Last updated 14th May 2019
One of Northern Ireland's top consultants says our crisis-hit health service needs at least 800 more senior doctors - simply to cope with current demand.
And Dr Anne Carson has warned that medics are already doing extra hours EVERY day, just so they can tackle a workload that has now reached unprecedented levels.
The warning comes days after fresh talks got underway at Stormont, in a bid to restore devolved government.
A planned medical school in the north west was due to open in 2019 but that has stalled due to the lack of a Stormont Executive.
Both British and Irish governments met with the main political parties in Northern Ireland on Tuesday to outline how new talks would proceed.
It has raised fresh hopes around reinstating a health minister to sign off on key issues like staff shortages.
Dr Carson is the chair of BMA Northern Ireland’s consultant’s committee.
Speaking to Downtown/Cool FM, she said while the stalemate rumbled on, Northern Ireland has been losing vital staff:
"We know that we have a dearth of doctors, we have huge rota gaps, huge shortages.
"We have the worst shortages in the UK, we have the longest waiting lists and we are haemorrhaging doctors, both juniors and seniors from Northern Ireland."
We contacted the Department of Health for comment- it didn't agree with the figure of 800 but didn't give an alternative number.
Dr Carson explained the problem arises because many consultants work extra hours to cover the large gaps in rotas:
"It is a tsunami of work" - Dr Anne Carson
"Probably I would say real vacancy is probably a quarter of the consultant's posts that would be required to deliver services are not filled.
"The definition of a vacancy is a very wide term, so we haven't agreement, so the stats from the Department do not reflect the true vacancies.
"We currently have over 1700 consultants but they all do overtime, they average 6-8 hours extra a week.
"If you add that up, that means that the current 1700 and nearly 50 that we have are doing the work of over 2200, if they drop back we lose the equivalent of 400 consultants in a very short space of time."
According to the BMA, there is also a huge 'brain drain' issue with many junior doctors choosing to work overseas, to escape the pressures and working conditions in Northern Ireland.
Dr Carson told us more needs to be done to encourage junior doctors to stay once they have qualified:
"I'm very concerned that my young colleagues, the juniors are going to Australia and my colleagues will follow them because it's not sustainable.
"There's lots of issues and lots of problems in Northern Ireland, the new medical school will help graduates graduate in the north west of the province and hopefully some of them will stay.
"The reason we're losing juniors?
"We're hemorrhaging juniors because life is very tough as a junior doctor, a lot come out with over £100,000 worth of debt."
"We are haemorrhaging doctors from Northern Ireland" - Dr Anne Carson
Inevitably, workload is also a huge problem for both senior and junior doctors when shortages arise.
Dr Carson told us the mountain of work for current staff is unsustainable:
"Medical staff are hugely frustrated, I'm a front-line consultant, I'm a radiologist, I report scans, it is a tsunami of work."