Poland's 'flying doctors' fill gaps in Northern Irish health care

BELFAST- Called the “flying doctors,” Polish doctors have become veritable part-time migrants who work regular night shifts here to fill a vaccum left by their British or Irish counterparts.

“All the patients in the world are the same,” according to Doctor Agata Slawin, 40, a native of the southwestern Polish city of Wroclaw who spends one weekend out of two at Craigavon hospital in the heart of Northern Ireland.

Why would Slawin, a mother of two who has her own practice in Wroclaw, fly to the other end of Europe to do night shifts at weekends and on school holidays?

For one thing, she told AFP that she can earn four to five times as much in Northern Ireland. By doing four shifts in two days, Slawin can go back home with a check of 1,500 pounds (2,229 euros, 2,850 dollars).

Though she has to cover her travel costs, the plane ticket between Wroclaw and Dublin only costs about 100 pounds thanks to budget airlines.

For another, she added, the experience itself is valuable.

“It’s a great opportunity to exchange our experience, between Polish and Irish doctors,” Slawin said. “Generally skill sharing between European doctors is very beneficial for patients and medecine.”

To provide round-the-clock public health care, the National Health Service (NHS) has tried to hire enough doctors from Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales as well as from across the border in the Republic of Ireland.

With the European Union acquiring new eastern European member states in May 2004, the authorities in the British province launched a campaign to hire doctors from the new member countries.

“I understand the Polish system is quite similar to ours, so it was easy for our Polish colleagues to come over and integrate well in the service we have in Northern Ireland,” said Ruth Rogers, spokeswoman at the Southern Health and Social Services Board.

For two years, six “flying doctors” provide regular consultations and a seventh is being recruited. Moreover, eight Polish general practitioners are now based semi-permantly in Northern Ireland.

All of them have maintained their practices in Poland.

“I saw an advertisement by head hunters in the local press in Wroclaw. I had a word with my wife, if you really have to go you go, but we’ll wait and see what happens,” said Doctor Mariusz Domanski.

For 18 months he has been spending three weeks out of four at the Daisy Hill hospital in Newry, a town bordering the republic of Ireland, where he has been doing night shifts.

In order to learn more about Ireland, Domanski has rented a room with a Northern Irish family because his wife and four children have preferred to remain behind in Poland.

Eighteen months later, the doctor from Wroclaw jokes with the nurses and staff at Daisy Hill.

'I was very afraid to see my first patient, afraid they would not understand me. But people are very polite here, much more than in Poland. I can't say I had any bad experience. ' he told AFP.

'On the contrary, one day I was entering a shop in Newry and somebody said 'excuse me.' When I heard 'excuse me,' I was surprised and wondered what I might have done wrong, but he went on to say he wanted to thank me,' Domanski said.

'Generally I think they have accepted us. I hope so anyway, but you never know, people here are very reserved,' he added.

An estimated 30,000 people from the expanded Europe, most of them natives of Poland, live in Northern Ireland, accounting for about two percent of the population.

Source:khaleejtimes.com