Health service dilemma

Dr Mohsin Kamal is an experienced medical doctor, originally from Pakistan, working in Ireland for over 4 years as a hospital Paediatrician, along with many dedicated doctors and healthcare workers from numerous countries.

Qualified & experienced medical professionals like Dr Kamal are desperately needed but they face obstacles because of rule changes which treat them like inexperienced novices, which is clearly wrong.

Rule changes, in Ireland, require overseas personnel to go back and do Basic Specialist Training (BST) before they can progress, even after years of clinical practice, as if their experience & service count for nothing.

The UK & other countries give experienced practitioners exemption from these requirements and offers training directly at advanced level for experienced & highly trained people like Dr Kamal.

It doesn’t make sense to work as registrar for few years then to apply for Basic Training despite being seriously overqualified. This is wasteful ethnic discrimination with no regard to training or clinical needs at a time of great pressure on health services.

Foreign-born medical staff face a horrible choice, whether to go abroad to develop their skills or stay in Ireland where they must do years of additional and largely pointless training before they can advance.

Please email or call your representatives & tell them these wasteful discriminatory rules must be changed. It’s time to shake up outdated rules in the Irish medical services.

Medical professionals like Dr Kamal who have proven their commitment & ability should be treated with respect & offered the chance to continue to serve the community they call home, in Ireland.