It was 1988, a bad time for junior doctors in Ireland. There was endless wrangling about overtime payments, ending in a pittance being paid for all the extra hours you always had to work, anywhere between forty and sixty on top of a forty hour week. I had graduated from medical school in 1987 at the age of twenty three and the time since had been a blur, working on call weekends that started on a Friday morning and ended on a Monday evening, back into hospital Tuesday morning to spend the day assisting in theatre.
There was little opportunity for career planning, studying for postgraduate exams or applying for medical professional training schemes. Then again, at that time there were few training schemes available and those that existed were oversubscribed. At that time in Ireland, it was widely accepted that doctors had to leave Ireland to get specialist postgraduate training – Irish doctors were regularly accepted onto training schemes in the UK, USA and Australia.
Leaving Dublin
I knew I had to leave Dublin and, with my husband, decided to leave. At that time the USA was the top choice and I started doing the necessary exams. My husband is not a doctor and we started the application process for the visa lottery. As an interim plan we decided to move to Belfast, as many of my friends from medicine had done the same thing. This decision of mine broke my father’s heart, and he pleaded with me not to go, Lorraine, you will never fit in there, you won’t be happy and it’s not , if safe!”.
Northern Ireland
I was offered a surgical job on the outskirts of Belfast and took up post in February 1989. We were assigned a house near the hospital, part of the accommodation for junior doctors then. On our first night there we sat in silence, aware of a flute band practising next door to us for several hours. Later I came to realise that this was a band practising for “marching season” in Northern Ireland and we were living near an “Orange Order Hall”. This did not bother me in the slightest but, when Human Resources realised I was from Dublin, they became agitated saying “people like me” couldn’t stay in that house and they moved us into accommodation on the hospital site. We were delighted to find ourselves in the same accommodation block as our friends from Dublin.
Over the next few months everything went very well for me at work. I was even invited to the hospital Medical Directors retirement party, although I was a bit puzzled when I realised that I was the only junior doctor invited to this prestigious gathering. I decided to ask Daphne, the Ward sister in Surgery, who was organising the event about this. Daphne looked surprised at my asking and simply replied “Because you’re one of us” and patted my arm smiling. Confused I asked her, “And what is that exactly?”. Daphne lowered her voice and replied, “A protestant of course”. Now I was very confused. Incredulous, I asked her, “And wherever did you get that idea from?” Now she was confused, “from the way you spell your surname of course, Dougherty”.
“Actually Sister”, I calmly explained, “that’s how the nurses on the ward spell my surname, which is actually Doherty. At night I often have to correct the medicine records to the right spelling so the prescription is valid.” Daphne blushed from head to toe and looked panicked, “Oh, oh I didn’t realise, I’m sorry”. “Don’t worry Sister, I’m busy that night anyhow” and I strolled away feeling shaken.
A&E
In Accident and Emergency (A&E) the nursing staff were amazing, they didn’t care who or what you were so long as you did a good job and were up for a chat when things were quiet. I loved working there and got on well with all the nurses. However, when the July rota came out the A&E sister, Jacqui, took me aside and quietly asked “Lorraine, did you see that you are the only doctor rostered to work in A&E on the night of eleventh of July? Is that wise?” “It’s no problem at all Sister”, I assured her, “I’ve covered A&E on my own before, I’ll be fine”. Jacqui didn’t look happy. “You have no idea,” she muttered and walked off. As July eleventh,1989, drew near, I began to realise that every doctor who wasn’t on call, was getting out of Northern Ireland for a few days. Even my husband decided he should probably go to Donegal, and I agreed to follow him there on July twelfth.
That year, the 11th night was mayhem in A&E from 5pm onwards. Thankfully Jacqui was working herself that night and had rostered some of her best nurses. My consultant was on call from home. The night was a blur of dealing with drunks, stitching heads and knife wounds and dressing burns. Around 9.00pm, Jacqui was looking very worried “That waiting room’s a complete zoo, I’m calling for security back up.” I thought that she was overreacting but said nothing. How wrong I was. Half an hour later, a not too sober man whose head I had carefully stitched up jumped up and ran into the waiting room and roared, “A stater stitched my head, there’s a bloody stater in there”. Jacqui roared at her nurses and the lone security man “ Barricade the doors, lock the place down, now! I’m calling the RUC”. “What’s a stater?” I asked her. “It’s you!” she snapped, “You’re from the Free State. God knows what they’ll do to you if they get in here.”
An hour later, I had an armed police escort to my accommodation. That night, I remember thinking that my father was right, I couldn’t stay in Northern Ireland. However, stay I did.
(c) Lorraine Doherty
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