Doctor’s Day is only 23 hours

Nice sentiment – when a retention and recruitment crisis continues to impact patient access to properly qualifed care.

1. 40% of doctors working in Ireland were born abroad. Half are women. Let’s do more about the racism and sexism.

2. Housing crisis has met a healthcare crisis. Younger doctors no longer get that traditional 100% mortgage. Many are required to move every 6 – 12 months for years, so if they do own a property they also need to pay rent on a second property – if they can find one. Or maybe just commute up to 4 hours per day. Alot for anyone – but just a bit more challenging after a 24 hour shift. And since those commutes need a car many pay for parking at their own workplace.

3. Doctors are far more likely to commit suicide than the general population. Unlike in other countries, in Ireland we don’t even track these statistics.

4. Flexible and part-time schemes can be difficult to access or impact career progression. And childcare arrangements? Fun fact: creche hours and hospital hours are not the same.

On Doctor’s Day, patients deserve to be able to trust their doctors have met a standard of training, are accountable, properly insured. More should be done to enforce existing legislation that restricts the practice of medicine without registration. Patients should not be misled that by private untrained or unregulated clinic without registered healthcare professionals. Patients deserve full transparency if a registered healthcare professional directly profits from recommending any products or certain private therapies (we still no robust anti-kickback legislation)