Doctors have called for onsite childcare facilities to be provided in the health service to help remove existing gender barriers in medicine.
Breastfeeding spaces, flexible training options, shared parental leave and training to “call out” sex-based discrimination and harassment are also needed, the annual conference of the Irish Medical Organisation heard at the weekend.
Women are increasingly following careers in medicine but continue to provide most childcare in families and have to “bear the brunt” of childbearing, miscarriage and fertility treatments, Roscommon GP Madeleine Ní Dhálaigh said.
“These inconvenient facts have been brushed under the carpet for far too long. Worse, they are used to harass and discriminate against the female medical population.”
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Proposing a motion calling on the HSE to remove barrier to gender equality in medicine, she said it was high time the service “grows up” by protecting the rights of women.
Incoming IMO president Dr John Cannon expressed incredulity that younger doctors were putting off families because they were unable to care for children due to work pressures.
[ Minister Stephen Donnelly accuses doctors of lack of balance at IMO conferenceOpens in new window ]
He described medicine as a “female-dominated profession working in a system designed for single, unattached males. It is completely archaic”.
Delegates called on the Department of Health to immediately extend free access to contraception to all women in their reproductive years. Proposing the motion, Monaghan GP Dr Aideen Brides described the introduction of free contraception for women aged 17-26 years last year as clearly beneficial, and said it had revealed an “astounding” demand for long-acting contraception.
The meeting also called for the introduction of structured menopause care for women. “Last summer, Joe Duffy told the entire female population experiencing menopause to go to their GPs and the Government’s answer was to open a dedicated clinic in Dublin 2,” Dr Brides said.
“Women outside Dublin experience menopause too,” she told the meeting, to applause. “We don’t need a specialist clinic but we do need a properly resourced programme.”
Rural GPs are “bound” to their practices by a lack of locum cover, Dr Martin Daly told the conference. “People are entitled to time off for holidays, sick leave and maternity leave but many GPs are stuck in a situation where they can’t leave their practices, and that makes them unattractive to new doctors,” he said.
Of 65 rural GP lists in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, nine are vacant and 10 require assistance, according to Dr Ken Egan. New GPs will not come to the area “if they can’t have their holidays,” he said.
Delegates passed a motion proposing that single-handed rural GPs be provided with five weeks’ protected annual leave in order to help retain existing doctors and recruit new ones.
At least 365 patients die from preventable causes each year due to hospital overcrowding, emergency medicine consultant Peadar Gilligan said, basing the estimate on international analyses.
It was time to stop treating medicine as “something that can be done in a corridor,” he said, adding that Ireland was “second only to California” for the likelihood of medical staff being sued.
