Up to one in five hospital consultant jobs are unfilled – as 600,000 people wait for an appointment, new figures show.
A total of 12% of the population are now waiting to see a specialist – with 255,000 delayed more than a year.
Around 75,000 people are awaiting inpatient or day-case treatment, figures from HSE’s National Doctors Training and Planning unit state.
Meanwhile, more than 20% of all permanent consultant posts are now vacant or filled on a temporary, locum or agency basis.
This means the number of unfilled consultant posts has increased to 728 – 45% more than previously thought.
An analysis of these HSE figures by the IHCA has shown of the 728 posts, 237 permanent consultant posts are vacant and a further 406 permanent consultant posts are filled by temporary and locum consultants.
The additional 83 posts filled on an agency basis.
In the area of psychiatry, 153 posts are vacant,
while 33 are not filled by permanent staff in the area of emergency medicine.
In surgery, there are 93 posts vacant, while in paediatrics 49 are not filled with permanent
consultants.
IHCA president Prof Alan Irvine warned: “This data confirms Ireland’s ability to provide quality, timely care to patients is worsening.
“Put simply, over 600,000 people require specialist medical treatment but our system is not providing the permanent specialist expertise to care for them.
“A major part of this problem is a direct result of this country’s ongoing consultant recruitment and retention crisis, which is continuing throughout the worst disease pandemic in a century.”
