Marvin OnumonuDoctors’ pay and working conditions in Northern Ireland (NI) have led many medical students to plan careers elsewhere, a survey by British Medical Association (BMA) NI found.
The survey asked final and penultimate year students at NI’s two medical schools about their plans after graduation.
Over half said they were either planning to leave Northern Ireland or were undecided about staying after their foundation training.
Out of those looking to leave, more than 66% said they were going to Australia.
Over 81% said pay and conditions were the main reason, while others cited the poor state of the health service and bad experiences during training.
Fewer than 4% thought pay and reward for doctors was fair in Northern Ireland.
More than 83% said higher pay would encourage them to stay, while nearly 77% wanted better working conditions.
Students who planned to remain cited family and support networks as their main reason.
Milan Kapoor, chair of BMA NI medical students committee (NIMSC), said: “It should be deeply concerning to all of us that a significant number of medical students on the verge of graduating are already planning for careers elsewhere after they complete foundation training.
“Northern Ireland medical students graduate with high levels of debt.
“They also have first-hand experience of workplace pressures in the health service and this has a huge impact on the quality of education and training while on clinical placements.
“It should therefore come as no surprise that they are looking elsewhere for better pay and training quality in health systems outside of Northern Ireland.”
Kapoor added: “However, this can be turned around. Over 90% of those surveyed said they still wanted to pursue a career in medicine so it is imperative that the government do all they can to encourage these newly qualified doctors to stay here for the duration of their careers.
“Aside from addressing doctors pay and workplace conditions, one area they can tackle to help this is fixing the unfair and complicated student finance system.
“It saddles students with a large amount of debt as soon as they start work and penalises those from lower-socio economic backgrounds from studying medicine.”
He said: “These debts are another factor in resident doctors’ seeking work in better paid health systems in other countries.”
Dr Alan Stout, chair of BMA NI Council, said: “This sounds an alarm for an increasing workforce crisis with worrying implications for a health service system that is already operating with unsafe staffing levels.
“We owe it to the patient population to encourage these doctors of the future to stay and work in Northern Ireland.
“That means valuing doctors with timely and adequate pay uplifts alongside targeted workforce planning.”
Stout added: “Long-term, we need to see urgent roll-out of HSC transformation as outlined in countless transformation reports, and transformation that is properly funded by ring-fenced, multi-year budgets.”
