Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 June 2023
13. Deputy Thomas Pringle asked the Minister for Health when a substantive reply will issue to correspondence on 23 August 2022 and 17 May 2023 from this Deputy in relation to the provision of GP services by Cuban doctors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26675/23]
View answerThis question relates to correspondence I sent to the Minister on 23 August 2022 and again on 17 May 2023 to which I received no response. In order to try to get a response I put it down as a question here today.
I thank Deputy Pringle. I checked in when I saw your question. The advice I have from the Department is that there was an acknowledgement and a response to the correspondence. That is the advice I have from the Department. If that is not correct we need to chase that up because certainly the view is that correspondence has issued. We need to make sure that has been received. If it has not, I will revert to the Department on that. Apologies if it has not. The Deputy should have had a response. I am told the response has issued.
Yesterday.
Yesterday, fair enough, well then he should have had a response earlier than that. I have no issue saying that at all. I thank him for getting in touch with me on it.
Increasing the medical workforce is a top priority for me and for the Department. As Deputy Smith and I were just talking about, I want to see a doubling of healthcare college places. The 2018 capacity review in regard to GPs, referring to the question, showed that Ireland had broadly similar per capita levels to the countries benchmarked. However, rapid access to GPs in certain areas is a real challenge. There is no question. I hear this throughout the country. The number of doctors in training is increasing. This is one of the ways in which we are tackling this. There is an increase from 120 in training in 2009 up to 258. That has more than doubled to last year. Further increases are planned for this year. Critically, we are working with the Irish College of General Practitioners, ICGP, on bringing international GPs into the country. In the Deputy's own county and constituency, there are issues. The ICGP is looking to bring in GPs including from South Africa but critically, support them in setting up in more rural areas. That is something that we fully support and want to see more of.
This is what I am talking about. The action as outlined in the correspondence yesterday could be done on a national basis by the Department of Health or the HSE actually talking to the Cuban ambassador and the Cuban authorities about the provision of doctors throughout the whole health service and for the hospital service as well. They are available but it requires the Minister actually to ask, to pick up the phone and have a conversation with them in regard to the actual possibility of this happening. This could happen quickly and could go a long way towards easing the burden while we wait for all those training places, as the Minister outlined, to come on board. Fortunately, the training places seem to be happening now, which is good, but we have heard about extra increases in training places for a long time and we have not seen any delivery on it. There will be gap between the training taking place and the actual delivery of the people and the easing of the burden on the health services. It is vitally important.
The HSE is working in collaboration with the Irish Medical Council, IMC, to identify potential regions for recruitment of doctors around the world who meet the IMC registration standards. Any such recruitment needs to be in line with our ethical guidelines. We are a signatory, as the Deputy will be aware, of the WHO's global code on the recruitment of international health professionals. Through this code, developed countries are encouraged to attain self-sufficiency in the domestic health workforce. Hence, I believe we are now moving to significantly increase college places here in Ireland. We should be moving to a position where we are happy to bring in international healthcare professionals, give them extra training and experience but with a view to their going back to their own countries as more highly trained and experienced professionals, while we have self-sufficiency within our own system. Any doctor who wants to practice in Ireland has to meet the registration requirements of the IMC. It is my understanding that the IMC does not automatically recognise qualifications from Cuba as indeed it does not from many countries throughout the world. However, there is a process in place for such doctors to take examinations and have their qualifications recognised.
Doctors from Cuba have been working in Portugal, Spain and Sweden, all within the EU, all recognised and all providing cover for the health services in those countries. What is so different about Ireland that this cannot happen? In County Fermanagh, in Enniskillen’s South West Acute Hospital, the health trust recently met with the Cuban embassy based in England and is now putting in place a procedure to look at how Cuban doctors can assist it in meeting the credentials it has in regard to providing cover there. It is doable. There seems to a complete reluctance in the Department going by the fact that it does not respond to correspondence and by not actually doing something to bridge the gap that we are talking about. There is going to be a long timeframe, as seen by the number of questions this morning about the lack of trained staff, the lack of doctors and the lack of availability. There is going to be gap between what the Minister is talking about, which I hope comes to pass, and improvement in the situation on the ground. This is an opportunity that could ease and alleviate that burden. The Department does not seem to be interested in taking it up.
Before the Minister comes in, Deputy Durkan wanted to come in briefly.
In support of my colleague, given that there is an emergency and an actual shortage of doctors at various levels throughout the health services in the country, and in anticipation of maybe an even greater and more acute shortage in the years to come by virtue of population changes, could I ask the Minister whether it might be possible to ensure that whatever procedures prevail throughout the EU in respect of incoming doctors, might be applied here?
We are looking to bring in GPs from around the world. We are not excluding Cuba from that. The HSE and the ICGP would welcome the inclusion of doctors from many additional countries, and Cuba is no different. The two bodies have been doing a lot of work with South Africa and various South American countries with a view to bringing over GPs from those locations. There is no issue in doing the same with Cuba. The HSE and the ICGP can link in with the Deputies on this matter.
It would be better if they would link in with the Cuban Embassy.
