Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) respond to comments made by Minister for Health Simon Harris before the Oireachtas Health Committee on Wednesday 11 December 2019

IHCA welcome the commitment from Minister Harris to further engagement in order to address the ongoing consultant recruitment crisis. The Government’s discrimination against consultants since October 2012 has resulted in one-in-five, or 500 permanent consultant posts, being unfilled in public hospitals across Ireland. This has exacerbated the delays in providing care to patients and led to record waiting lists. Consultants have been repeatedly calling on the Government, but to no avail, to provide us with the capacity to treat all public hospital patients in a timely manner without delays.

“Consultants provide care to patients each day in public hospitals with extreme capacity deficits that are deteriorating by the month. This is evidenced by the cancellations of all but emergency and urgent surgery for months, the increasing number of patients being treated on trolleys year-round and the one million people on waiting lists to access hospital care.