Minister must step into minefield

THE hurling season may be drawing to a close but there’s still one man perfecting his hurler-on-the-ditch routine.

Two hospitals have been brought to a standstill, resulting in more than 1,000 patients facing cancellations. But despite the fact the industrial dispute by junior doctors in Waterford and Tullamore could quickly escalate to a nationwide strike, Health Minister Micheál Martin is still sitting on the fence.

Presented with a prime opportunity to get stuck in and bang some heads together, the Minister has stayed out of the firing line.

No, wait. Stop the press. The Minister has called for an immediate end to the industrial action in the interests of patient care.

Taking a timid swipe at the striking doctors, Mr Martin said the industrial action over rosters is disproportionate to the issues involved. Asking the Labour Relations Commission to intervene, he said the Health Service Employers Agency was now willing to participate in the stalemated talks.

Arguing that there are sophisticated industrial relations mechanisms in place to resolve disputes of this nature, the Minister said he won’t undermine this system. Sidestep, anyone.

Standing up to the junior doctors could prove a populist position to adopt. For years, non-consultant hospital doctors have complained they are overworked. Horror stories have been cited of unfortunate junior doctors being forced to work entire weekends on their own with no sleep or food by slave-driver health board paymasters.

Now the health managers have turned around and cut the number of hours junior doctors work to below the maximum of 65. The health boards point out they are obliged under EU law to reduce the doctors’ working hours and that part of a junior doctors’ 39-hour basic week could be worked outside normal working hours.

The junior doctors claim this move undermines their training and leaves hospitals short of NCHDs during the busiest times of the day.

But it’s hard to look beyond the claim by the HSEA that the doctors’ action is an attempt to protect their considerable overtime earnings. The lucrative payments can boost the pay of a junior doctor by 45,000 a year. The numbers of junior doctors has increased to 3,800, so there’s bound to be less hours to work. Having been given what they wanted, the junior doctors appear to want to have their cake and eat it, and it’s hard to see the public supporting them in their action.

It’s difficult to see how the Labour Relations Commission is going to resolve the dispute as its chairman Kieran Mulvey admitted the two sides differ greatly.

The results of a ballot of IMO members on a nationwide strike as a result of the new rosters will be known on August 23, so time is of the essence.

The involvement of the HSEA will give a fresh impetus to the talks, but the body’s argument that it would not get involved up to now because there were merely a series of regional disputes is of scant consolation to the patients on waiting lists who face further delays.

At the moment, consultants in medical and surgical areas oversee services to public patients, while NCHDs deliver them. Shifting away from an over-reliance on junior doctors, Mr Martin wants to create a consultant-provided service.

But even if the resources are ever granted for this system to be implemented, it’s still a long way down the line and this again is of scant consolation to patients, who want action rather than words.

Dubbed “Angola” by former Health Minister Brian Cowen, because you never knew when the next landmine would go off, Health remains a volatile government portfolio.

All too keen to be the centre of attention when announcing a waiting lists initiative or a patient-focused plan, Mr Martin must learn to take the rough with the smooth and get stuck in where necessary. Any one of the PR companies which the Minister has employed in the past two years would tell him that.

It’s time to step into the minefield, Minister.