IMO accused of exaggerating pay claim

HEALTH Minister Micheál Martin has accused the Irish Medical Organisation of exaggerating their pay claims for senior public health doctors.

And the Department of Health refused to respond to reports that a senior doctor or nurse had contracted hepatitis B. The department denied last night that patients could be exposed to infection and such a medical emergency could not be handled due to the strike.

Fine Gael health spokesperson Olivia Mitchell claimed a frontline health professional had been diagnosed with hepatitis B.

“If this is true, it leaves patients dangerously exposed in the absence of a look-back system to trace patient contacts. This mammoth and urgent task would ordinarily be undertaken by the public health doctors,” Ms Mitchell said.

Although refusing to confirm or deny the reports, the Department of Health said the strike would not interfere with the handling of such a scenario.

“The Department’s Standing Advisory on the Prevention of Blood Borne Diseases in the healthcare setting would in any event advise on a situation such as this if it arose. Any tracing or testing would be done by the hospital,” a spokesperson said.

IMO chief executive George McNiece expressed serious concern at what he described as the gravely inaccurate and misleading nature of Mr Martin’s statement in the Dáil on Tuesday regarding the current strike by public health doctors.

In a letter to Mr Martin, the IMO demanded salaries for specialists and directors at the same level as hospital consultants and pro-rata salary increases for senior area medical officers and area medical officers.

But in response, Mr Martin said this represented a claim for salary increases far above the 30% he believed was being sought.

“This assumption, which is shared by the Health Service Employers Agency, was based on the IMO Briefing Paper dated February, 4, 2002 which at page 12 contains a heading entitled: ‘30% pay gap must be bridged’,” Mr Martin said.

Mr Martin asked the IMO to go back to the Labour Relations Commission to continue negotiations or seek a referral to the Labour Court.

According to the department, emergency cover for the strike will continue to be provided over the weekend. GPs and hospital medical personnel have emergency contact numbers for their regions with senior officials in each health board on call 24 hours a day.

“There is an incident room in the Department of Health and Children which will be staffed over the weekend. Officials who work in public health-related areas will all be available 24 hours,” a spokesperson said.