Doctors may strike over new rosters
The Irish Medical Organisation, which represents more than 3,000 junior doctors, says it will not stand idly by and see hospital management introduce new rostering agreements which will force its members to work unsociable hours.
It begins a postal ballot of its members this week and says it has been forced into such action.
Non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs) will picket outside a number of hospitals today. That action will escalate if managements continue to pressurise training staff into working new rosters, said the IMO's director of industrial relations Fintan Hourihan.
Today up to 60 junior doctors will picket outside Tullamore hospital. They will provide emergency cover only. Junior doctors at Sligo have also been balloted but have not yet served strike notice on management there.
In Waterford all 120 NCHDs at the regional hospital plan to withdraw cover from Thursday in protest over rostering. They will provide emergency cover only and all departments at the hospital will be effected.
Mr Hourihan said the best training time for doctors was from 9am to 5pm. Under various agreements, they work a 29-hour roster. Any hours outside of that are paid at an overtime rate and they earn double pay for Sundays.
"We have been to the Labour Court and there are a series of agreements which indicate how rostering should be organised.
"Yet a growing number of hospitals are trying to force in new agreements without consultation. We don't want to threaten this action but we have been forced into this situation," Mr Hourihan said.
The IMO said it could not dispute figures published yesterday which show that some junior doctors were earning up to 140,000 per annum even more than Health Minister Micheál Martin. The annual bill for junior doctors salaries has reached 310 million.
"We can't dispute these figures. But they in themselves are a symptom of how junior doctors are being pressurised and are being forced to work up to 80 and 90 hours a week. You simply couldn't earn that much money without clocking up such hours," Mr Hourihan said.
Patients rights group Patient Focus said disputes can not be allowed to escalate and a compromise must be reached now. Dr Tony O'Sullivan, a GP in Irishtown, Dublin, appealed for eleventh hour discussions between the sides.
"I do have a certain amount of sympathy for the NCHDs but personally I think strikes in essential services such as health are a bad idea," he said.
"There is plenty of room for negotiation before this dispute escalates any further. It should never have gotten to this stage in the first place.
"It is critical for people who are in hospital and who are sick to be looked after by doctors who are up to the work and who are treated fairly."
Dr O'Sullivan appealed to those doctors who will begin industrial action in the coming days to ensure they provide adequate emergency cover. "My basic appeal is, please, don't do it," he said.
