“Given the population we are serving [the region has a population of c460,000], best practice says we should have five dermatologists. Yet I worked here single-handedly for 16 years and it’s not as if I hadn’t made entreaties to management,” Dr Buckley told the Irish Examiner.
He said a third dermatologist was to have been appointed but the recruitment process was so drawn out that in the end the person went elsewhere.
Dr Buckley, who is 10 years from retirement age, has previously described the Waterford Regional Hospital-based service as “finger in the dyke stuff”. It’s understood the recent letter backlog fiasco — where the HSE admitted more than 3,000 letters had not been sent to GPs updating them about patients because of a shortage of administrative staff — was one of the issues to play a part in Dr Buckley’s decision. (Examiner) >
Filed under: Colin Buckley (dermatologist), Doctors, Services, Sinead Field (derm) Tagged: Dermatology
