Punishing hospitals by withholding consultants

Sir, – The notion that the Department of Health can “punish” underperforming hospitals by not appointing medical consultants to them, or that efficient hospitals can be “rewarded” by giving them extra consultants, suggests that Ireland’s health managers see hospital consultants as luxurious optional extras whose numbers they can manipulate up or down at will (“

Are consultants not essential senior doctors whose numbers should depend on the patient workload rather than on any reward or punishment system? I suspect that there are international standards published by medical experts that recommend the number of consultants needed to serve a population or a hospital of a particular size.

The Department of Health should rethink its approach to the appointment of hospital consultants and apply those international standards rather than use the appointment of hospital consultants as a means of punishing or rewarding its hospitals.

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