The rise in the number of newly graduated healthcare practitioners leaving to go work in Australia will not be ‘easy to fix’, according to a leading doctor.

Dr Chris Luke from the Irish Medical Times is calling on Government to make working in Irish hospitals more attractive to young people.

It comes after figures released by the Daily Mail showed that almost 2,500 healthcare staff in Ireland have applied to work in Australia so far this year.

On The Pat Kenny Show today, Dr Luke said it was a difficult issue to solve.

“It is a complicated conundrum and it’s not going to be easy to fix,” he said.

“There are factors that we need to identify including lifestyle and the conditions people are expected to work in here, as opposed to in Australia, for example.”

Competition

Dr Luke said countries across the world are now competing for staff.

“The situation, in terms of the global healthcare worker shortage, has been evolving for at least a quarter of a century.

“All countries, whether they be in the west, east, south or north - they are all competing in this global marketplace.

“It’s a problem that’s been evolving for many-many years.”

Medical training

Dr Luke said many students come to Ireland to receive their medical training but unfortunately leave again soon afterwards.

“It’s a complicated mix of a lot of problems, we train something like north of 700 medics a year,” he said.

“We do train a substantial number of future health care professionals but the difficulty, medically speaking, is that so many of them go abroad to Australia, the US, or the UK.

“Or they return to their country of origin because, of course, Ireland has long been a magnet for people travelling for medical training from Norway, Canada, Malaysia, Saudi [Arabia] and so forth.”

Dr Luke added that some are leaving “within weeks of getting their license”.

He said it has become very accepted for young people to move away once they graduate.

“It is really incredibly simple, easy, and attractive to get to Perth, Melbourne, or Sydney – that’s not an issue,” said Dr Luke.

“Perhaps it’s become so easy, it’s a reflex of young graduates to head off immediately.”

Action

Dr Luke is calling for action.

"I always come back to this idea that there needs to be some incentive at the beginning of the ecosystem when people go into nursing or medical schools,” he said.

“There needs to be some sort of incentive scheme and we need to be nuanced about this.”

The columnist added that some discretion of Leaving Cert points needed for courses could be overlooked in exchange for a guaranteed stay in an Irish hospital upon graduation.

Listen back now:

Main image: a stressed nurse. Picture by: Panther Media GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo