Graduate Entry Medicine students are panicking after hearing news that a “life-saving” Bank of Ireland loan has been discontinued.
Financial support is often required for students to cover university fees for this course, which now stand at between €15,000 - €16,500 per year, depending on the university.
Bank of Ireland is currently the only financial institution in Ireland that offers a suitable loan linked directly to this course but it will no longer be available as of 21 July, 2022.
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A UCD student from North Dublin told Dublin Live: “It’s not going to be available for anyone who wants to pursue this course in the future. It’s essentially prohibiting the middle class from even considering this as a career.
“I’m coming to the end of my first year of graduate entry medicine. It’s a four year long course, there’s a lot of people in my year who are going to be very directly impacted by this.
“The bank has agreed to honour any loans that have already been approved but a lot of people only require the loan for second, third and fourth year or just third and fourth year - people might have financial arrangements in place at the start.
“Anyone who was planning on doing that has to apply for their loan now and hope they get approved before the cut off date in the middle of summer.
“I was lucky enough to have enough personal savings to pay for my first year of this course. I only planned to apply for this loan from second to fourth year so I was hoping I wouldn't have to worry about it until summer.
"But now I'm panic applying and hoping that I get approved before the cut off date. If it doesn’t get approved on time, I know of a lot of people who will have to drop out of the course.”
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The move has been described as an “absolute disaster” that could cause a “shortage of medical doctors nationally down the line.”
Our source said: “The profession should never be open only to those of a certain financial background.
“There’s no other loan in the country that offers a four year moratorium so we don’t have to make repayments until we graduate and have a salary paid job as a medical intern.
“There’s no other loan in the country that offers that, I don't know many students who have a part time job that could cover €17,000 worth of college fees every year.
“It’s not advised to have a part time job, it’s an accelerated course so you’re essentially doing a six year medical degree in four years.
“You’re told by the university that this is the equivalent of working 50 to 55 hours a week in terms of the time of studying you have to put into it.
“I can only describe it as panic. Alumni have been saying that they couldn’t have done the course if they didn’t have the loan. People are in shock.”
The Dubliner believes that the time, money and effort put into this course is more important than the money.
They said: “Everyone who picks graduate entry medicine, we’ve all done a degree before. A lot of us came to the decision to pursue medicine and there’s a personal choice involved in continuing your education and taking this course in particular.
“Most of us acknowledge the financial repercussions that come along with it, the fact we knew that there were high fees. But we made the decision to do this course.
“The loan offered charges 6.5 percent APR which could reach €100,000 by the time we graduate. That decision wasn’t easy but getting rid of that option is absolutely baffling.
“It begs the question, is it any wonder that Ireland is short on junior doctors?
“We’re just asking for fair access to financial support to pay the required fees. We’re calling for the Minister for Health, the Minister for Higher Education and the Minister for Finance to actually engage with us and come up with a practical solution.”
A spokesman from Bank of Ireland told Dublin Live: "While existing customers are not impacted, the Graduate Entry Medical loan will no longer be available for new applications after 31 July this year.
"The loan required a parental guarantee which was not an option for all students and the deferral of repayments meant accumulated debt by the end of term.
"It has accounted for a very small volume of our overall lending and the volume has dropped in recent years, while our other loans became more popular."
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