A LACK OF consultants is pushing many acute hospital departments and mental health services to the ‘brink of collapse’, the profession’s representative association has said.

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) is holding its annual conference in Cork today to discuss challenges faced in providing care.

The organisation’s president, Dr Gerard Crotty, said that “significantly increased funding’ is needed in Budget 2015 for currently “underfunded” acute frontline services.

The Government must recognise that the health service cannot take any more of the short term, hand-to-mouth approach that has dominated over the last few years.

Crotty added that if the Department of Health doesn’t take steps to stop doctors and consultants emigrating, it could “impact adversely on medicine for decades to come”.

“We are in the midst of a chronic consultant recruitment and retention crisis that is directly affecting patient care,” Crotty said, “Many acute hospital departments and mental health services are either in crisis or are on the brink of collapsing, because consultants who have left cannot be replaced.”

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