Can we do this for every single college educated job now?
“bloody emigrants, going over there”
It’s mental. My mates boyfriend is a junior doctor and he’s treated like utter dirt by the HSE. 21 straight hours working last Thursday and all for appalling wages. Now they’re talking about moving to England. I’ve seen too many people in the medical profession fuck off to the NHS in the UK because they’re better paid with better working conditions. What I can’t understand is that Irish taxpayers money is paying to educate these teenagers in Irish universities only to see them fuck off out of Ireland and benefit the people of England. How is it sustainable? Why are they whinging for having to pay our medical people in this country?
And they immigrate here from India, Pakistan, anywhere outside the EU.
We tend to go to Australia because we can get in there.
It’s just a big cycle.
Edited to fix my own terrible spelling
This is a nothing story – almost all of them return – getting international experience early in the career is completely normal for med grads
Edit: I didn’t mean this to be upsetting to people – don’t get me wrong – the HSE are absolutely shite at looking after doctors. But please don’t go after the junior doctors heading to Aus to try better their CV – the majority do return as better doctors
For in demand professions, there should be an obligation to work in Ireland x years. What is the point in taxpayers funding training for people who are going to take those in demand skills overseas at the first oppotunity. On the other hand working conditions and benefits probably need to improve here too.
Update
I may have expressed it poorly but I am questioning why
1. We are unable to provide enough services because we don’t have enough people in the relevant professions
2 We are unable to offer college/training to everyone who wants to enter the professions
3. A percentage of those that we do train leave the country so the country does not benefit directly.
They can reach consultant way quicker over there and then if they want come back here and be consultant and be over worked for money. There was a long running row with nurses and management over junior doctors taking bloods from patients, juniors stopped doing it in the uk and other countries as it takes a huge amount of time and they created a specialist role (usually nurses who are no longer in a position to do shift work). Some hospitals are doing it here, but nationally some of the nursing unions were blocking it. They way they are treated is not right, burn out will happen. Our level of training is good but it is cruel. And not all of the HSE is terrible but this is one area that is awful.
Where do Aussie doctors emigrate to?
They need to make graduate medicine economically accessible. More people would jump at the chance to do it but the cost is horrendous. I would love to go back and do it. I’d make a great doctor too. Love puzzles and have zero social skills!
Is that a large number? How many have migrated here from south asia and the middle east in that time frame?
It’s funny because I’m in Canada and have been in and out of the hospital with my wife for the last year or so.
Every other doctor or nurse was Irish and they said the difference with how they are treated and compensated here is night and day compared to Ireland.
I knew a fair few people back from my university days who were doing a variety of medical related courses, from nursing and midwifery, to psychology to general medicine and so on.
Out of the six only one has stayed in Ireland and they only stayed because of family reasons. Everyone says it and everyone knows it; the conditions are absolutely brutal in the Irish healthcare system and I don’t blame anyone for jumping ship. I’d damn well do the same in their shoes.
With a million more well on the way.
IRELAND
Total Budget 2022 €87.6BN
Total Healthcare spend €22.2BN
Percentage of Budget 25.3%
Total Population 5M
Healthcare spend per person €4.4K
Ratio of nurses to patients 1:6 to 1:15
NQ nurse salary €30K
Average nurse salary €44.4K | 39-hour week as a base
AUSTRALIA
Total Budget 2022 $628BN (€420BN)
Total Healthcare spend $98.3BN (€65.7BN)
Percentage of Budget 16.7%
Total Population 26M
Healthcare spend per person $3.8K (€2.5K)
Ratio of nurses to patients 1:3
NQ nurse salary $62.4K AUD (€41.7K)
Average nurse salary $76.8K AUD (€51.3K) | 38-hour week as a base
From what I’ve read on this subject, it’s not so much about pay. Junior doctors in Ireland are paid reasonably well. It’s more to do with career progression and hours.
It’s a hard, long slog to move up the ladder in Ireland whereas in Australia they can do it much faster (which also means more money).
The other big issue is hours. It seems to be the norm for young doctors and nurses in Ireland to work 60+ hours a week whereas in Australia they do 40 hours a week and get a day off every month.
I live in the province of Alberta, Canada. In November 2021 a clinic in my city lost 13 doctors. Since January 2022 we have lost 118 Alberta physicians.
Medical student here, so there are a few misconceptions in this thread, let me clear it up.
– Every EU citizen that graduates from an Irish Medical School is almost guaranteed an intern job, which kind is dependent on the ranking you achieve in final exams. However the opposite is true for non-EU students that graduate from the same school, it is very hard to get an internship.
– NHS pays much less than the HSE
– Most doctors that go abroad to Australia from Ireland, usually come back within 2 years as any further stay would mean getting penalised on their Basic Specialty Training application (as far as medicine is concerned)
– There is a unified pay scale available for doctors working in the public sector, there aren’t any instances of doctors from outside the EU coming and undercutting EU doctors.
– Even if they opened up more intern posts, the real bottlenecks that occur for the people the system was designed for starts after completing Basic Specialty Training (this is for Medicine, but Surgery is much more competetive in this regard and the bottleneck presents itself earlier.), the same goes for opening up more medical school places, there will still be a much greater shortage of training positions.
Happens every year in Ireland.. not so much of a surprise.
Younger doctors, especially those fresh out of intern year, will go for lifestyle reasons with most intending to come back after 2 years. The work life balance is night and day. You get paid more, you work less hours, and the hospitals are generally better run with more oversight and support from senior staff. The training at this level is more up to scratch where you learn to do things the right way, as opposed to the Irish way where you learn to just get things done. In Ireland you learn to be a whizz at phlebotomy while you finish your apprenticeship in photocopier/fax/ECG machine repair. My impression is that Irish docs are generally liked in these places because they are trained well comparatively well for their level, are native English speakers, and are used to working hard. Unfortunately many are often happier over there and will be lured to stay.
More senior doctors who are on training schemes will generally go to Australia/US as part of fellowship training, where you get specific experience which you may not be able to get in Ireland, with the plan to come back after 1-2 years. These places will let you finish specialty training and actually engage in meaningful research with protected time. Training schemes in Ireland are supposed to let you do this also, but the clinical demands are so much that most of your energy is focused on just keeping the service afloat. The result is that at senior levels, consultants will often push you to go abroad to get more high quality experience to bring back.
My experience is that some senior doctors who go to NHS sometimes go for different career reasons. Some will go for extra training as outlined above, but some go with less intention of returning because of the bottleneck phenomenon. After years of working at a senior clinical level and not being able to get on a requisite training scheme due to lack of training spots, many jump ship to the NHS where there is less nepotism and politics when allocating training spots. It’s a big decision to uproot your family, but when you have sunk 5+ years into a specific area and there is no prospect of you actually becoming qualified in it, you can’t blame these doctors for moving. They usually walk into training schemes in UK. It can be done in North America, but it’s more of a gamble as you essentially have to start from scratch from intern level again and there is much more bureaucracy.
The number would be far higher if it wasn’t for the queues in Dublin airport /s
Were 420 of them originally from Australia though? /notArealquestion
The Irish Healthcare system is bad for both doctors and patients but the sad part is most people don’t realize it, or get defensive about it, but those of us who come from other EU countries can see the stark difference and have a collection of horror stories.
Despite having an expensive private insurance in Ireland and spending thousands on top of it, having to go back to Spain for Healthcare was a common occurrence for me and other Spanish expats, not just for costs but because something that would take months in Ireland would be resolved in Spain in a couple of weeks.
My worst experience ever was with my wife, she had a very scary lump in her neck, they tested her scanned there and everything for months. Tons of specialist appointments, oncologists charging 200 bucks an hour, but where the appointment would last 30 minutes, 10 of which were spent reading her file because they hadn’t done any prep work.
After 8+ months they had no idea, I asked my wife to get a second opinion in her home country (Japan). She had a full diagnosis, surgery, and was back home in less than two weeks, oh and it cost way less.
Expats have many stories like this. It’s just pathetic. This is one of the main reasons I left Ireland.
A friend of mine who’s a paediatric thoracic surgeon could instantly triple his salary and halve his workload by moving abroad. The only reason he stays is cause he knows that his particular specialty is so in short supply, him leaving would definitely result in dead kids. Meanwhile his marriage is falling apart because he’s never at home and he can only afford a small house in the middle of nowhere.
It’s a fucking scandal.
Not surprised, we’re stuck in the past.
Don’t see why they wouldn’t
If you haven’t been in a hospital lately that number seems very likely I would have guessed more.
Sure one of mates came to this country through a HSE job Fair in their own country, they had already a full medical degree in their own country, but they had to start from the beginning and pay for it when they got here. So the HSE is importing doctors and forcing them to pay for retraining.
A lot of comments missing the main point. Students train to be doctors here absolutely free, then head away to countries where they’ll make more money than if they stayed here. Either medicine needs to no longer be free to study, or medical students must sign up to work for at least 4 years here after graduation before being allowed run to the money.
I love ireland but will have to move as a junior doctor
27 comments
Can we do this for every single college educated job now?
“bloody emigrants, going over there”
It’s mental. My mates boyfriend is a junior doctor and he’s treated like utter dirt by the HSE. 21 straight hours working last Thursday and all for appalling wages. Now they’re talking about moving to England. I’ve seen too many people in the medical profession fuck off to the NHS in the UK because they’re better paid with better working conditions. What I can’t understand is that Irish taxpayers money is paying to educate these teenagers in Irish universities only to see them fuck off out of Ireland and benefit the people of England. How is it sustainable? Why are they whinging for having to pay our medical people in this country?
And they immigrate here from India, Pakistan, anywhere outside the EU.
We tend to go to Australia because we can get in there.
It’s just a big cycle.
Edited to fix my own terrible spelling
This is a nothing story – almost all of them return – getting international experience early in the career is completely normal for med grads
Edit: I didn’t mean this to be upsetting to people – don’t get me wrong – the HSE are absolutely shite at looking after doctors. But please don’t go after the junior doctors heading to Aus to try better their CV – the majority do return as better doctors
For in demand professions, there should be an obligation to work in Ireland x years. What is the point in taxpayers funding training for people who are going to take those in demand skills overseas at the first oppotunity. On the other hand working conditions and benefits probably need to improve here too.
Update
I may have expressed it poorly but I am questioning why
1. We are unable to provide enough services because we don’t have enough people in the relevant professions
2 We are unable to offer college/training to everyone who wants to enter the professions
3. A percentage of those that we do train leave the country so the country does not benefit directly.
They can reach consultant way quicker over there and then if they want come back here and be consultant and be over worked for money. There was a long running row with nurses and management over junior doctors taking bloods from patients, juniors stopped doing it in the uk and other countries as it takes a huge amount of time and they created a specialist role (usually nurses who are no longer in a position to do shift work). Some hospitals are doing it here, but nationally some of the nursing unions were blocking it. They way they are treated is not right, burn out will happen. Our level of training is good but it is cruel. And not all of the HSE is terrible but this is one area that is awful.
Where do Aussie doctors emigrate to?
They need to make graduate medicine economically accessible. More people would jump at the chance to do it but the cost is horrendous. I would love to go back and do it. I’d make a great doctor too. Love puzzles and have zero social skills!
Is that a large number? How many have migrated here from south asia and the middle east in that time frame?
It’s funny because I’m in Canada and have been in and out of the hospital with my wife for the last year or so.
Every other doctor or nurse was Irish and they said the difference with how they are treated and compensated here is night and day compared to Ireland.
I knew a fair few people back from my university days who were doing a variety of medical related courses, from nursing and midwifery, to psychology to general medicine and so on.
Out of the six only one has stayed in Ireland and they only stayed because of family reasons. Everyone says it and everyone knows it; the conditions are absolutely brutal in the Irish healthcare system and I don’t blame anyone for jumping ship. I’d damn well do the same in their shoes.
With a million more well on the way.
IRELAND
Total Budget 2022 €87.6BN
Total Healthcare spend €22.2BN
Percentage of Budget 25.3%
Total Population 5M
Healthcare spend per person €4.4K
Ratio of nurses to patients 1:6 to 1:15
NQ nurse salary €30K
Average nurse salary €44.4K | 39-hour week as a base
AUSTRALIA
Total Budget 2022 $628BN (€420BN)
Total Healthcare spend $98.3BN (€65.7BN)
Percentage of Budget 16.7%
Total Population 26M
Healthcare spend per person $3.8K (€2.5K)
Ratio of nurses to patients 1:3
NQ nurse salary $62.4K AUD (€41.7K)
Average nurse salary $76.8K AUD (€51.3K) | 38-hour week as a base
From what I’ve read on this subject, it’s not so much about pay. Junior doctors in Ireland are paid reasonably well. It’s more to do with career progression and hours.
It’s a hard, long slog to move up the ladder in Ireland whereas in Australia they can do it much faster (which also means more money).
The other big issue is hours. It seems to be the norm for young doctors and nurses in Ireland to work 60+ hours a week whereas in Australia they do 40 hours a week and get a day off every month.
I live in the province of Alberta, Canada. In November 2021 a clinic in my city lost 13 doctors. Since January 2022 we have lost 118 Alberta physicians.
Medical student here, so there are a few misconceptions in this thread, let me clear it up.
– Every EU citizen that graduates from an Irish Medical School is almost guaranteed an intern job, which kind is dependent on the ranking you achieve in final exams. However the opposite is true for non-EU students that graduate from the same school, it is very hard to get an internship.
– NHS pays much less than the HSE
– Most doctors that go abroad to Australia from Ireland, usually come back within 2 years as any further stay would mean getting penalised on their Basic Specialty Training application (as far as medicine is concerned)
– There is a unified pay scale available for doctors working in the public sector, there aren’t any instances of doctors from outside the EU coming and undercutting EU doctors.
– Even if they opened up more intern posts, the real bottlenecks that occur for the people the system was designed for starts after completing Basic Specialty Training (this is for Medicine, but Surgery is much more competetive in this regard and the bottleneck presents itself earlier.), the same goes for opening up more medical school places, there will still be a much greater shortage of training positions.
Happens every year in Ireland.. not so much of a surprise.
Younger doctors, especially those fresh out of intern year, will go for lifestyle reasons with most intending to come back after 2 years. The work life balance is night and day. You get paid more, you work less hours, and the hospitals are generally better run with more oversight and support from senior staff. The training at this level is more up to scratch where you learn to do things the right way, as opposed to the Irish way where you learn to just get things done. In Ireland you learn to be a whizz at phlebotomy while you finish your apprenticeship in photocopier/fax/ECG machine repair. My impression is that Irish docs are generally liked in these places because they are trained well comparatively well for their level, are native English speakers, and are used to working hard. Unfortunately many are often happier over there and will be lured to stay.
More senior doctors who are on training schemes will generally go to Australia/US as part of fellowship training, where you get specific experience which you may not be able to get in Ireland, with the plan to come back after 1-2 years. These places will let you finish specialty training and actually engage in meaningful research with protected time. Training schemes in Ireland are supposed to let you do this also, but the clinical demands are so much that most of your energy is focused on just keeping the service afloat. The result is that at senior levels, consultants will often push you to go abroad to get more high quality experience to bring back.
My experience is that some senior doctors who go to NHS sometimes go for different career reasons. Some will go for extra training as outlined above, but some go with less intention of returning because of the bottleneck phenomenon. After years of working at a senior clinical level and not being able to get on a requisite training scheme due to lack of training spots, many jump ship to the NHS where there is less nepotism and politics when allocating training spots. It’s a big decision to uproot your family, but when you have sunk 5+ years into a specific area and there is no prospect of you actually becoming qualified in it, you can’t blame these doctors for moving. They usually walk into training schemes in UK. It can be done in North America, but it’s more of a gamble as you essentially have to start from scratch from intern level again and there is much more bureaucracy.
The number would be far higher if it wasn’t for the queues in Dublin airport /s
Were 420 of them originally from Australia though? /notArealquestion
The Irish Healthcare system is bad for both doctors and patients but the sad part is most people don’t realize it, or get defensive about it, but those of us who come from other EU countries can see the stark difference and have a collection of horror stories.
Despite having an expensive private insurance in Ireland and spending thousands on top of it, having to go back to Spain for Healthcare was a common occurrence for me and other Spanish expats, not just for costs but because something that would take months in Ireland would be resolved in Spain in a couple of weeks.
My worst experience ever was with my wife, she had a very scary lump in her neck, they tested her scanned there and everything for months. Tons of specialist appointments, oncologists charging 200 bucks an hour, but where the appointment would last 30 minutes, 10 of which were spent reading her file because they hadn’t done any prep work.
After 8+ months they had no idea, I asked my wife to get a second opinion in her home country (Japan). She had a full diagnosis, surgery, and was back home in less than two weeks, oh and it cost way less.
Expats have many stories like this. It’s just pathetic. This is one of the main reasons I left Ireland.
A friend of mine who’s a paediatric thoracic surgeon could instantly triple his salary and halve his workload by moving abroad. The only reason he stays is cause he knows that his particular specialty is so in short supply, him leaving would definitely result in dead kids. Meanwhile his marriage is falling apart because he’s never at home and he can only afford a small house in the middle of nowhere.
It’s a fucking scandal.
Not surprised, we’re stuck in the past.
Don’t see why they wouldn’t
If you haven’t been in a hospital lately that number seems very likely I would have guessed more.
Sure one of mates came to this country through a HSE job Fair in their own country, they had already a full medical degree in their own country, but they had to start from the beginning and pay for it when they got here. So the HSE is importing doctors and forcing them to pay for retraining.
A lot of comments missing the main point. Students train to be doctors here absolutely free, then head away to countries where they’ll make more money than if they stayed here. Either medicine needs to no longer be free to study, or medical students must sign up to work for at least 4 years here after graduation before being allowed run to the money.
I love ireland but will have to move as a junior doctor