The medical field is suffering from a “severe GP workforce crisis,” according to the Irish College of General Practitioners.

Ireland is suffering from a ‘brain-drain’ of skilled medical professionals to foreign shores, resulting in a “severe GP shortage” across the country.

Speaking to The Pat Kenny Show, the College of General Practitioners Medical Director Dr Diarmuid Quinlan said Ireland has just over 4000 GPs but needs a total of 6000 GPs.

“Our population has expanded enormously in the last 20 years – we now have the longest life expectancy in the EU,” he said.

“Older people require a very substantial amount of GP care for conditions like all the various cancers, osteoporosis, hypertension, diabetes, dementia, depression, so both physical and psychological aspects.

“COVID has put a huge workload into general practice.

“We have an ageing GP population, one in seven of our GPs are over the age of 65 and 200 GPs are over the age of 70.

“The expansion of the medical care system for children under the age of six, increased the consultation rate of that cohort by 30%.”

Irish doctors

Dr Quinlan said the medical field “simply doesn't have the workforce” to accommodate these pressures.

“The HSE is working really hard with the Irish College of GPs and the IMO,” he said.

“We have very substantially expanded the number of GP training spaces from 155 back in 2015, with 255 GPs in training this year, and a plan to go to 350 by 2026.

“However, we have a four-year GP training programme, so people who join a GP training scheme in 2026 will graduate with qualified GPs in 2030.

“It is not an immediate solution, and an even longer-term solution is we need to increase the proportion of medical students who select the wonderful career of general practice as their career of choice.

“The vast majority of people who qualify as GPs in Ireland are remaining in Ireland … you're talking about 4%, 5%, 6%.”

The scheme

Dr Quinlan said the new scheme is attempting to reverse the “brain drain” and support doctors who want to come and work in Ireland.

“We have doctors on our programme from right across the world, with people from the African continent from Nigeria, Sudan, South Africa, from the from the Indian subcontinent, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan,” he said.

“These are experienced GPs, they need to have some hospital jobs done including paediatric medicine, they need a minimum of three years of relevant daytime GP experience.

“Some of the people in our current programme have 20 years' experience.

“We identify a rural practice which has a track record of medical education, the Irish College of GPS provide very substantial education support for these doctors over a two-year programme.

Cultural context

Dr Quinlan said the doctors work alongside a named supervisor GP in a practice for two years.

“Appendicitis is appendicitis, but how you're managing appendicitis in Canada or Sudan is very different to how you manage it in Glanmire,” he said.

“It is cultural context support for these experienced doctors to integrate and hopefully remain in these rural communities.”

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