Public health doctors ready to strike

PUBLIC health specialists have signalled they are ready for strike action amid claims the country has no out of office hours emergency plan to deal with an epidemic like the deadly pneumonia virus spreading across the world.

Public health doctors are set to take full-scale and indefinite strike action after it emerged there has been no movement on negotiations since the Irish Medical Organisation deferred a walkout.

Strike action is due to begin on Monday week unless the IMO and the Health Service Employers’ Agency can hammer out a deal, an unlikely scenario given the stalemate on talks.

The 300 doctors respond to and monitor public health outbreaks as

diverse as the winter vomiting outbreaks, the dirty heroin deaths, the anthrax scares and the recent Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome threat.

They also advise on the country’s medical response to a biological threat or nuclear fallout.

Fintan Hourihan, the IMO’s industrial relations officer, claimed that it is being taken for granted that public health directors and specialists and area medical officers will respond to calls 24 hours a day despite only being contracted to work nine-to-five.

This, the organisation claims, also makes a mockery of the country’s

national emergency plan, based as it is on a 24-hour response.

Public health doctors are currently on a work-to-rule. On March 20, they deferred for two weeks the issuing of a strike notice, citing the start of the war on Iraq. Deadline day is Thursday and details of the action will then be thrashed out and one week’s strike notice is expected on Monday.

John Delamere, of the HSEA, said efforts are continuing to resume discussions. Health Minister Micheál Martin has urged doctors not to strike and said a plan has been put to the IMO, one the organisation believes does not cover the key complaints.

In the event of a strike, doctors have promised cover in the event of a genuine emergency, such as an outbreak here of SARS, a disease that one world leading public health expert yesterday warned was more contagious than originally believed.

As the Department of Foreign Affairs warned against non-essential travel to affected areas, Dr Hitoshi Oshitani, a World Health Organisation expert, said:

“In most cases infection occurs by close person-to-person contact, but there are several cases now that we cannot explain by this model of transmission.” SARS, he said, was more contagious than the Ebola virus.

More than 60 people have died and 1,800 have been infected by the mystery illness that experts believe may be related to the common cold