Cases where NCHDs have worked 20 days without a day off, Oireachtas committee hears The HSE admitted that 800 extra non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs) were needed to ensure safe and legal working hours among the workforce just 24 hours before the recruitment freeze was announced, an Oireachtas committee has heard. The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health that 83 per cent of junior doctors here are routinely working more than 48 hours a week since the embargo was announced last October. “The day before the recruitment freeze was announced, the HSE advised the IMO that it would take a targeted recruitment of up to 800 additional NCHDs to bring working hours to legal and safe levels,” said IMO CEO Susan Clyne.
“We left that meeting thinking there was a commitment to finally sorting this out. The next day, a recruitment embargo was announced.” According to the union, 65 per cent of NCHDs have been unable to take study leave because of staff shortages, while 77 per cent are pressurised to do extra shifts.
“It is not unusual for NCHDs to get a text to say ‘don’t let your colleagues down, do this extra shift’,” Ms Clyne said. “The NCHD has been gaslighted. They are made to feel it is their fault and they must do something to provide extra shifts.
” She added that ‘on every metric’ the HSE has breached a 2022 agreement with the IMO which aimed to ensure NCHDs worked safer working hours. “Amazingly, the HSE cann.
