the absolute number of doctors has continued to grow in most oecd countries during the recession and afterwards although the rate of growth has slowed down in countries such as greece this result can in part be explained by the policy to reduce the number of temporary staff and replacement staff although it should be noted that greece still has the highest number of doctors per capita among oecd countries in ireland a number of changes that affect the medical workforce have been introduced including nonreplacement of staff on leave end of temporary contracts and voluntary redundancies as well as reduced agency and locum staffing