Today, 97% of Irish non-consultant doctors just voted in support of striking over concerns about illegal working hours, unsafe conditions, and pay disparity.

29 comments

  3. I wish pharmacists had half the balls. We never got the temporary cuts to our funding reversed from the LAST recession.

  4. To be fair they have a very hard task. I’ve seen what ED is like on a busy Saturday night (I was very ill and had to be kept in). They work insane hours and can’t make mistakes

    GPs are working tons of hours and don’t have capacity to take on new patients. Sometimes they can’t get a doctor for the out of hours doc surgeries(first hand from a GP).

    Even doctors feel the pinch of living in Dublin (a doctor I saw had a wife also a doctor and got a job in Galway and wanted to move).

    So I’d support them no end. I hope they can get better treatment.

    Also this isn’t just an Ireland problem. I watched a documentary about surgeons in England before and one doctor said his consultant wife was earning £250k in London but could get a job in the states and be on a starting salary of $1m.

  8. It’s ridiculous to expect them to keep working as they are and they’re 100% right to take industrial action. It’s not their fault that they are so criminally overworked.

    Government really needs to get the finger out to try and sort this issue because at the moment we are simply exporting medical professionals to other counties at significant cost to the taxpayer.

  9. Another fun fact is that when they’re Interns/SHOs and they have to move between hospitals as part of their iob, they go back on Emergency Tax every time they move. Even if they’ve worked in that hospital previously. And so have to get onto Revenue each time and get Emergency tax altered. Every single time.

    Even though its one company, the HSE.

    It’s absolutely nuts.

  10. Not surprised they’re over worked has anyone ever tried phoning up an ambulance in Killarney recently you literally have to beg for one and its like phoning up for a pizza! One operator even said to me “phone back if it gets worse!” after seeing someone collapsing and unconscious. WTF?

  11. If you drove a truck and were caught doing similar hours you would be banned and fined for doing it . Why is it acceptable for doctors making critical decisions to work these crazy shifts , they are 100% right and I back them , this strike has been many years in the making.

    Increase the numbers of places in medicine courses by at least double and actually give the staff a work life balance that may tempt them to stay. Currently they all leave cause the system burns them out

  13. The HSE needs an anti-bureaucracy panel that investigate the efficiency of departments and management structures. The whole government needs this.

  15. Where is the money going in our health system? In € per capita terms we spend a LOT – we aren’t skimping, yet the services are terrible and the patients and the medical staff are all treated badly.

    So what the feck is happening?

  17. No one wants to be a doctor in Ireland because of the working conditions

    > The beatings will continue until morale improves

  19. All I will say is I am glad I chose dentistry over medicine…

    Bless medical students. The absolute hell they go through. And for what exactly? To be slaves?

  22. Long long overdue. The exploitation of non-EU doctors in particular in this system is shocking – years of working 24 hour shifts in “training” posts with no progression because of where they are from. System that is inflexible and routinely forces doctors to work 24 hour shifts and longer. Hospitals not paying for work before 8am, or after 24 hours worked.

  23. The fundamental problem is that most modern politicians and therefore governments have been bright up on the “balance the budget” BS with regards to the economy. So they think it’s like a household budget and they want to reduce spending on “wasteful” expenditure, like health and education. They don’t realise that a plentiful education budget and health budget benefit the economy in non monetary terms. And they do contribute to a thriving economy. They see health in particular as a loss making operation in the “household or business budget”.

    The constant cost cutting leads to staff shortages and stress through the sheer difficulty of “having to make do”. Now I haven’t worked in Ireland, but I have seen this happen in the UK, and I see it happening in Australia. And the problem is that doctors and nurses continue to push on despite these difficulties through a sense on altruism. And unfortunately when you start seeing the push back and staff losses, it means that the system is past the breaking point. And unless your government starts injecting large amounts of money in to the system now, with a massive recruitment drive, your system is in for a tough 5 or 6 years. It would help if they pushed to have front line clinical staff in management roles, and started sacking people with MBAs and “management degrees”.

  24. The reality is government agencies basically break employee rights laws that private companies would be closed down over. Government companies should be the standard for employee rights not the opposite.

  26. I’m an emergency department NCHD. I spent last night awake with a fever and a bad cough (covid neg). I tried to go into work today but quickly realised I was not really fit to be there and should have been in bed. I was then told we were so badly staffed that it would be unsafe for me to leave “unless I was collapsing”.. so I just.. stayed working.. having coughing fits in front of patients for 10 hours… Kind of hoping that I would faint so I might be able to go..

    Anyway I voted yes

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