At least one Health Service Executive (HSE) region is planning to recruit full-time GPs from abroad in response to a growing shortage of family doctors in the Republic. Dr Muiris Houston, Medical Correspondent, reports.
Following a recent meeting with GPs in the region, the primary care unit of HSE North East has called for the centralised recruitment of GPs from abroad. Until now, this has not been common practice.
In a report on medical manpower shortage in counties Cavan, Monaghan, Meath and Louth, HSE North East said: "The number of doctors and GPs in training will not meet the demand generated through retirement."
According to a health status report presented to the meeting by Dr Declan Bedford, a specialist in public health medicine, the region has seen the biggest increase in population in the State in the past 10 years.
This increase has been especially marked in people aged 25-44.
Some 29 per cent of the population in the northeast have medical cards.
While there are currently 152 GPs in the region offering health services to patients with a medical card, 45 family doctors have either retired or left the area between 1995 and 2004.
As a result, the GP to patient ratio, which should be 1:1,600, is now at one doctor per 2,181 patients.
Based on the national guidelines, there is currently a need for an additional 60 GPs in the region.
The specialist training scheme for GPs in the area has produced 41 graduates in the past 10 years. Some 44 per cent of these doctors continue to work as family doctors in the northeast.
However, the meeting heard of widespread concern that the gap between the provision of new GPs and the needs of patients will continue to widen.
While 23 GPs in the area are due to reach normal retirement age in the next 10 years, a recent survey of GPs in the Republic found that 60 per cent wished to retire before they reached 65 years.
The majority of female doctors surveyed wish to retire before they are 55 years of age, which further exacerbates the manpower problem, according to doctors at the meeting.
Dr Conor O Shea, a Drogheda GP and a doctor in the primary care (GP) unit of HSE North East, told The Irish Times: "It is going to be very difficult to recruit GPs to rural areas in five years or so, increasing the likelihood that communities will not have their doctors replaced when they retire."
Even when posts are advertised in the large towns in the region, such as Drogheda, Dundalk and Navan, there are very few applicants, according to Dr O Shea.
Referring to the worsening GP to patient ratio, he said this would put additional strain on doctors.
"If the numbers imbalance is not corrected, thus pushing people into retiring even earlier, the crisis will come sooner," he said.
The meeting also heard concerns about the viability of the region's out-of-hours co-operative service.
"The commitment that is required to the North East Doctor on Call [NEDOC] shifts is becoming increasingly difficult to manage in addition to a GP's full-time day job," according to the report.
In addition to recommending a national GP manpower plan, the report calls for a programme "to recruit people into medicine and general practice at an early stage".
A working group, set up by the Ministers for Health and Education, has recommended more than doubling the number of places for Irish and EU students in the Republic's medical schools.
At present, just 305 EU students enter medical courses each year, a figure that has remained static since 1978, despite an estimated annual need for 720 new doctors here.