The above confuses many different numbers and conflates different arguments. It's going off topic now so I'm replying just once more for anyone else reading who is interested in the facts and the context.
Ireland's medical schools are full of international students and they bring in a lot of money for the state. Many/most international graduates from Irish medical schools go home after graduation. There are 2 main reasons for this. The primary one is that they just came to Ireland to get their degree and never intended to work here. That's fine, they pay huge fees and they subsidise the system, no-one is saying they must stay. These are not the numbers that are discussed when it comes to doctors leaving.
There is a 2nd group of international students who would like to stay here and work but they cannot because of employment rules. The barrier was a legal requirement based on interpretation of EU law, nothing to do with any doctors. In fact, doctors lobbied for the laws to be changed.
Irish graduates are a separate bunch. The vast majority of them can get an intern place. But after that we see the exodus, not just after intern year but all the way along the path to consultancy.
For Irish students, a medical degree is 5 years and costs the state around €11,000 per student per year. So the cost to the exchequer is €55,000 in total. For graduate-entry students, the government pays even less, as most of the cost is taken on by the students in the form of high personal loans. The cost for an international student to attend medical school here is around €300k and the government makes money on this.
Again, if we are talking about the 4 years of GP training, 90% of this involves delivering direct patient care in hospitals and GP practices. They are not students listening to lectures and sitting in libraries - they are Senior House Officers and Registrars working and treating patients. So any cost to the states is their wages.
That said any qualified doctor can work in general practice.
That is just not true. Vocational GP training has been a requirement for about 20 years and you must be on the GP specialist register to even be shortlisted for a job. You would not be able to see medical card patients and you would not even get indemnity insurance, not to mention legal and Medical Council requirements.
We cannot get enough non-consultant doctors, they are not available, so we are hiring people from all over the world, causing a huge brain drain and ethical quagmire that further disadvantages developing country health systems. And we still cannot get enough people.
Many health workers only stay because they have great colleagues who are working above and beyond to make things better for patients and for staff. In my experience the HSE is held together with good will and a lot of unpaid work.
None of them would pick A&E work or being on call every few days in a hospital over two three hour sessions a day telling people they have a chest infection etc for a couple of hundred grand a year.
That job sounds
almost too good to be true but please share the details as I have a few hours free!