IRISH TROOPS serving overseas will be put at risk and Ireland’s role as an international peacekeeper undermined unless the healthcare provided to members of the Defence Forces is radically overhauled, a Governmentcommissioned review has found.
The unpublished report has identified a chronic shortage of doctors in the Defence Forces, with three times as many having retired over the past 15 years as have been recruited.
Doctors are being overburdened because other medical staff employed by the Defence Forces are not being fully utilised.
Some 60 per cent of the annual medical checks for all military personnel are not being carried out in barracks because doctors do not have the time. This has resulted in an over-reliance on outsourcing, with €3 million spent annually on such services.
There is a complete lack of accountability or monitoring in place for expenditure on outsourcing, and nothing has been done to check the standard of the service. Doctors are spending almost half their time completing paperwork.
Despite this, the Defence Forces has failed to gather even basic data on the health of its personnel. The lack of information is so acute it is impossible to accurately forecast the likely medical needs of the Defence Forces in some areas.
The medical review, by PA Consulting Group, was commissioned last year by Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea. It will be published today.
It has long been accepted in military circles that the provision of health services to troops and retaining doctors was in need of urgent attention.
The new report, which has been obtained by The Irish Times, recommends a move away from the Medical Corps model under which doctors deal with even the most minor ailments. Instead, it suggests a greater role for other medical personnel and says younger soldiers should undergo a medical check every two years.
The review has also recommended that the Medical Corps be reorganised into a centralised unit rather than deploying its personnel to brigades nationwide and working in isolation. The current system was leading to a situation where holistic reviews of services needed, and those being provided, were never carried out. An ad hoc medical service had emerged.
PA Consulting Group has said it was only by reforming the Medical Corps that its personnel would be able to work alongside international military partners on overseas missions.
