Knock-on effect of Nurses pay claim

Purple said:
o address the first lie; there are about 200 GP graduates enter the system each year. Two thirds of those are women. The vast majority of them work part time and so they only add up to 110 full time GP's. The problem isn't that there aren't enough GP's. The problem is that they are so lazy and/or over paid that they only work a half day.
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.....& there we have it, a nice little dose of misogyny
 
noproblem said:
Very, very, true. Had an awful throat infection in Turkey some years ago and had to find a Dr. A local told me to go to a Turkish Dr's surgery, actually came with me to the door. Met by a nurse, spoke good English and was lovely and efficient, told me i'd have to wait about 30 mins. Dr walked out to greet me just as she spoke, he also had good English, told nurse to take bloods and explained to me that I would be put lying on a bed until he could get back to me and by then he would have blood results. Aprox 30 mins later he was back, with full diagnosis and medication and very kind to me, didn't want to let me go until I felt a bit better. Ok, it did cost me €175 and yes, they took Euro. My point is that this Dr in a small Turkish town had all the equipment in his surgery, he could also have taken X-Rays if needed. Irish GP's by comparison are tight and one can safely say very limited in what they have in their surgeries. Maybe they need a good wake up call and people should let them know that a hell of a lot more is expected off them for what they charge. Time when the professionals could pull the wool over peoples eyes should be long gone.
Perhaps it's time for the ordinary Joe Soap to go on strike and tell everyone complaining about how good they have it.
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Sensing a potential end to their sheltered sector, GP, s have gone hell for leather in launching a propoganda campaign with a view to convincing the public that not only is there no money in it but that no one wants to become a GP either, they didn't drop their fees a red cent during the recessionary years and every business has to pay staff and insure their premises so spare us the poverty stories, that some long established GP, s have a sweeter deal re_ medical card contracts is another matter but I suspect an internal sector dispute
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
Ireland actually produces the highest number of medical graduates per capita in the OECD!

The issue is that EEA students (who are mainly Irish) get an incredibly expensive education for just €3,300 a year for six years. I haven't checked the numbers recently but the taxpayer will pay something like a quarter of a million euros for a medicine degree on top of what the student pays in fees.

At the end they have to work hard, but no doctor working full time in Ireland is outside the top 10% of income earners by the age of 35, and many will make it to the top 1%. Yes, they will pay a lot of tax, but there is a good case for making them pay a lot in extra fees too, particularly given that a significant minority will emigrate, make a lot of money abroad and not pay tax in Ireland.
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My sister in Dublin is engaged to a new yorker, he has a good job in finance but began work with 250 k in college loans, beit nurses or high earning consultants, many get a cheap as chips education which more than makes up for lower incomes than in the usa etc
 
In any case, let's get back to the poor nurses.
For all the bad pay, conditions, exhaustion, etc, I don't see too many leaving. Bring back the Nuns, that'll teach them :)
 
Miakk said:
.....& there we have it, a nice little dose of misogyny
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Really, calling people out for not doing their job is misogyny?
Are suggesting that women can't work as hard or as long as men?
Are you suggesting that their place is in the home and that they should only work part time?
I find your comment deeply sexist.
 
@Purple @Miakk

I doubt that the 'vast majority' of female GPs work part time, although I am sure it is a substantial number. I am sure some male GPs work part time too.

The fact is that part-time work is great if you can get it, the problem is that it generally pays less per hour than full-time work for most people.

Parts of the medical profession - GPs and nursing for example - are very nice in that you can work part-time hours with the same hourly wage rate. Given that marginal tax rates are pretty heavy at the high end in Ireland, this is a very nice work-income-lifestyle balance that isn't available to people in most professions.
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
I doubt that the 'vast majority' of female GPs work part time, although I am sure it is a substantial number. I am sure some male GPs work part time too.

The fact is that part-time work is great if you can get it, the problem is that it generally pays less per hour than full-time work for most people.

Parts of the medical profession - GPs and nursing for example - are very nice in that you can work part-time hours with the same hourly wage rate. Given that marginal tax rates are pretty heavy at the high end in Ireland, this is a very nice work-income-lifestyle balance that isn't available to people in most professions.
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2/3 of GP's are women.
More than half of GP hours worked are worked by male GP's.

200 GP's enter the system each year. So many work part time that they only fill 110 full time equivalent posts.
The problem is not that we don't have enough GP's. The problem is that we don't have enough GP's who are willing to work a full week. Given that the people of Ireland invest about a third of a million into the training of each GP the solution of paying them more and hiring more of them is a very expensive one which offers very poor value for money to the State.
 
This thread is about Nurses and their pay. But, GP's and their problems have ared to have sneaked in. Furthermore, its Fulltime GP and Part-Time GP.

All medical doctors have had to curtail their work, upgrade services, employ more staff, take in nurse(s) to the practice etc. What I knew to be a GP in my youth has considerably changed. The big game-changer is litigation. No GP can tell if the next patient is going to sue him/her out of existence. Any GP doctor worth his/her salt would be at the receiving end of a huge claim at least once during the life of the practice.

Unfortunately, the country has got what it wished. Somebody must pay the legal eagles.
 
Leper said:
All medical doctors have had to curtail their work, upgrade services, employ more staff, take in nurse(s) to the practice etc.
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I go to a GP about once a year. I don't have a regular one as I am shopping around to find one I think is any good. In the last few years the practices have varied from large modern purpose built building with good equipment and nurses and receptionists to small grotty rooms with a single receptionist. If a doctor has a GMS list the State pays for additional staff, depending n the size of their list (number of medical card patients). That means that a moderately large practice will see their Nurse and Practice Manager pay for by the State. The amount per patient that the GP tells everyone they get is on top of that. When you divide the total amount GP's get under the GMS scheme and divide it by the total number of consultations they do they average per consultation was around €70 before the cuts. I think it is around €60 now. That doesn't include the value of their pension.
 
Leper said:
This thread is about Nurses and their pay. But, GP's and their problems have ared to have sneaked in. Furthermore, its Fulltime GP and Part-Time GP.

All medical doctors have had to curtail their work, upgrade services, employ more staff, take in nurse(s) to the practice etc. What I knew to be a GP in my youth has considerably changed. The big game-changer is litigation. No GP can tell if the next patient is going to sue him/her out of existence. Any GP doctor worth his/her salt would be at the receiving end of a huge claim at least once during the life of the practice.

Unfortunately, the country has got what it wished. Somebody must pay the legal eagles.
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It's extremely rare for a doctor to be struck off, it's also extremely rare for a doctor to be found guilty of medical negligence.

They are about the biggest clique in the country, they don't Rob each others patients, let alone throw a colleague under the bus for something as trivial as medical negligence
 
Leper said:
The big game-changer is litigation. No GP can tell if the next patient is going to sue him/her out of existence.
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It seems there was a form of this even 200 years ago. From Frank McNally in todays Irish Times! -

"In a travel book a few years later, A Frenchman’s Walk Through Ireland, Jacques Louis de Bourgenet describes meeting a freelance inoculator on a Mayo mountain road. The man, who had been bound for the priesthood until economic reverses deprived him of the education, had instead fallen back on medicine, earring up to £40 a year from the work.


He amused de Bourgenet by explaining that the care he took was in part motivated by self-preservation: if he lost a patient, he would also lose the payment and probably get a beating into the bargain."

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/...isease-that-robbed-him-of-his-sight-1.3784439
 
galway_blow_in said:
They are about the biggest clique in the country, they don't Rob each others patients, let alone throw a colleague under the bus for something as trivial as medical negligence
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I think that trivialises it considerably.
First there is defensive medicine to consider, both in terms of additional tests and procedures (often unnecessary), and also in terms of administration.
Then there is the cost of medical insurance.
There is the administrative time involved in preparing to defend any claim.
And there is the stress of the disciplinary system, even if vindicated.
 
galway_blow_in said:
They are about the biggest clique in the country, they don't Rob each others patients, let alone throw a colleague under the bus for something as trivial as medical negligence
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It’s very hard to sanction anyone in any sector in this country for not doing their job properly but on the accusation that they are a cartel; yes, of course they are.
 
Purple said:
I go to a GP about once a year. I don't have a regular one as I am shopping around to find one I think is any good. In the last few years the practices have varied from large modern purpose built building with good equipment and nurses and receptionists to small grotty rooms with a single receptionist. If a doctor has a GMS list the State pays for additional staff, depending n the size of their list (number of medical card patients). That means that a moderately large practice will see their Nurse and Practice Manager pay for by the State. The amount per patient that the GP tells everyone they get is on top of that. When you divide the total amount GP's get under the GMS scheme and divide it by the total number of consultations they do they average per consultation was around €70 before the cuts. I think it is around €60 now. That doesn't include the value of their pension.
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Purple said:
It’s very hard to sanction anyone in any sector in this country for not doing their job properly but on the accusation that they are a cartel; yes, of course they are.
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A cartel is different and related to price fixing, they are that too but culturally, they are incredibly cliquey, solicitors, mechanics, estate agents, you will on occasion hear them criticise a colleague, doctors never ever say anything but every single one of their fellow doctors are practically perfect in every way.
 
galway_blow_in said:
doctors never ever say anything but every single one of their fellow doctors are practically perfect in every way.
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A bit like teachers then and the opposite of builders.
It would be gas, all the same, if your child went into a new class and the teacher started with the whole "Jasus, who did you get to teach then this stuff before? I wouldn't have done it like that, bleedin' cowboy" like builders do when you ask them to look at a job in your house.
 
Purple said:
It’s very hard to sanction anyone in any sector in this country for not doing their job properly but on the accusation that they are a cartel; yes, of course they are.
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The CPCC (formerly Competition Authority) actually went to the High Court a few years ago to stop the IMO from co-ordinating activities of its members as it had many of the features of cartel-like behaviour.
 
According to the department of Department of Public Expenditure and Reform the people of Ireland spend €2.16 billion a year paying the 37,520 Full Time Equivalent directly employed nurses and midwives in Ireland for an average pay of €57,602.

They go on to say that their 12% pay claim will cost circa €300 million a year.
12% of €2.16 billion is €259 million. Where did the other €41 million come from?
Source
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
The CPCC (formerly Competition Authority) actually went to the High Court a few years ago to stop the IMO from co-ordinating activities of its members as it had many of the features of cartel-like behaviour.
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They now have regional meeting to discuss clinical issues, the sorts of illnesses they are seeing and issues facing the profession... a short time later they'll all just happen to put up their prices by the same amount.
 
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