Struggling health service could be losing NI next generation of doctors
Last updated 18th Jan 2023
Northern Ireland's next generation of doctors could be lost because of unprecedented pressures on the health service it has been warned today.
Problems within the health system have been well documented with health bosses warning of “extreme pressures” in recent weeks and months.
Cancer waiting times and ambulance handover targets have been missed significantly this year.
While thousands of nurses and health care workers have taken to the picket lines to demand better pay and safe staffing.
Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care Trusts have also outlined their struggles and concerns for a system that is being pushed to its limits.
In an interview with Downtown/ Cool FM a junior doctor and a GP trainee in the Southern Trust, Fiona Griffin, has said many junior doctors are facing “burn out” and morale among staff is “really low” with many leaving to find better working conditions elsewhere.
She said: “More junior doctors than ever are getting on flights to leave, and going to Australia, they're going to New Zealand, they're going to different places or they're just leaving medicine altogether.
“I think everyone who works in a hospital, or a GP setting will know someone or several people who have left and gone elsewhere or have left and gone to the pharmaceutical industry or have left and gone just to do any other number of jobs, which is very worrying.”
Dr Griffin, who also sits on the Northern Ireland Junior Doctor Committee with the British Medical Association, said hospitals and GP surgeries are “understaffed” which is adding to the “immense pressures” workers are facing.
She added: “They're still huge rota gaps and it can't really continue the way it is. We do need change.
“You don't get into medicine to think that you're actually not going to practice.
“You know, it's a hard slog and getting through that is tough enough, but then the working environment that we're in at the minute, it's even tougher for a lot of people and it is not what anyone has expected.
“During Covid was really tough. Everybody dug deep and got through it, but coming out the other end, the pressures haven't alleviated. The pressures are still there.”
At the end of 2022 NI’s Health and Social Care Trusts announced new measures to try and mitigate service pressures.
They included actions aimed at reducing ambulance handover delays and excessive patient waits in hospital Emergency Departments.
However, the steps introduced in December were not designed as a long-term solution.
The Trusts have stressed that a long-term funding settlement and reform is needed, something Dr Griffin agrees with.
She added “Yes, the hospitals are full. Yes, the EDs are very, very busy. But that's all the time. All the time. You know. It's not like they're hundreds of free beds in the middle of June. They're beds are full all the time.
“People here remain and working in the NHS, they're there for a particular reason. You know, I love my job, I love working the NHS and so many of my colleagues do as well. And I think that I think that's what the BMA are trying to do at the minute. We're trying to see what do our members need, what our members want to keep them here because.
“There is hope, and there's so many people who just love doing their job and they do. They want the NHS to work better for them as an employee, but also, we have to remember these are families. If any of our families get sick, they're going to be coming into this system which we know is not working very well at the minute and that's very, very worrying for all of us as well.”
Read More:
Cancer waiting times: Last six months "worst on record" says charity
NI ambulance handover target missed hundreds of times
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