Dwindling Mayo emergency services could become 'unviable'

EMERGENCY services in Mayo are dwindling towards a point of not being viable unless urgent action is taken, warns a consultant at Mayo University Hospital, reports CLAIRE McNAMARA

Their email, which was written in September 2018 and released under the Freedom of Information Act, was sent to Senator Michelle Mulherin and Minister Simon Harris.

They highlight their serious concern the current new entrant pay discrimination is having on recruitment and retention of medical consultants.

In October 2012, the then Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly, unilaterally reduced new entrant consultant salary rates by 30%.

Recent attempts to address this inequality have failed and the fulfilment of the terms of the previously breached 2008 contract has only served to widen the gap between those hired prior and after this time.

In Mayo, a number of competitions have been launched between 2015 and 2017 to recruit consultants.

However, some of these resulted in no candidate being appointed and the remainder have not reached the interview stage.

Also, a significant number of consultants are emigrating to Australia due to the better working conditions.

In August 2018, attendance figures at the hospital were 8.6% higher than the previous year, with the consultant warning that these are not conditions that will attract good staff.

With the current situation, the resources available to treat the people of Mayo and surrounding areas are dwindling towards a point where emergency services may no longer be viable.

Having previously worked in areas that underwent the reconfiguration process, they understand and support the withdrawal of services from hospitals that cannot safely provide that service.

They insist it would be cost-effective to tackle the pay differential in order to make it easier to recruit consultants. Currently these posts are either vacant and not providing a cost-effective service or are filled by locum doctors who are each paid a multiple of the public service salary and are often not on the register of medical specialists.

They maintain it is not possible to attract qualified candidates when they would be faced with this dichotomy on taking up a post and being paid less than their non-specialist colleague.

Undoubtedly, as a result of unfilled posts, service development is stunted and the quality of healthcare being offered to the people in our catchment area is undermined.

All consultants have the same work commitments, regardless of the time of recruitment, and it is fundamentally unfair to expect the same levels of productivity despite remuneration differences, which often approach 50% and can be much higher.

Separately, in October 2018, a group of six consultants at the hospital wrote to minister Harris warning that vital services currently available in the hospital will be disrupted and inevitability lead to discontinuation unless the issue of pay discrimination is addressed.