Medical assessments of child sex abuse cases on hold while doctors strike

STRIKING public health doctors have warned that medical assessments of child sex abuse cases are on hold while the dispute continues.

Nursing home inspections, health screening of asylum seekers and medical assessments of children with disabilities have also been hit by the strike action which began yesterday and involves the country’s 300 public health doctors. The action could ultimately have the effect of extending across the health services, if the doctors go ahead with plans to place all-out pickets on the health boards which other employees would be asked not to cross.

Dr Joe Barry, chairman of the Irish Medical Organisation’s (IMO) public health committee, said they had told health employers that they reserved the right to place the pickets.

“At the moment, the pickets are concentrated on area medical offices, but we may step up the action if the Department of Health and the Health Service Employers Agency (HSEA) continue to ignore our demands. If this happens, the health system will collapse.”

The action has already led to the cancellation of school immunisation clinics, child development clinics and BCG clinics (TB vaccination) and the closure of some STD (sexually transmitted disease) and HIV clinics. It has left the country exposed in the event of the outbreak of infectious diseases, such as meningitis, the winter vomiting bug, food poisoning and SARS, which the public health doctors normally monitor and manage.

In the Southern Health Board (SHB), where up to 40 doctors picketed its offices yesterday, Dr Cliodhna Foley-Nolan, specialist in public health, said doctors had been driven to action out of a sense of frustration: “For years we’ve been providing out-of-hours service without pay and it’s been a chronic abuse of our good will. Most of us have treated 200-300 patients per annum over the last decade for which we have not been paid.”

The IMO is claiming that doctors are owed up to €6 million for the 24-hour cover they provided.

Yesterday Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy was adamant that no more money will be made available to the doctors: “The Department of Health has its allocation this year already.”

Labour’s health spokeswoman Liz McManus called on Health Minister Micheál Martin to intervene immediately to resolve the dispute

The IMO is calling on the Government and health employers to put proper structures in place to ensure doctors are adequately paid for out-of-hours work. It blames the dispute on the Government for breaking an agreement it signed up to in 1994 providing for a full review of the operation of the Departments of Public Health. The IMO says the review was continuously delayed by the Department of Health and despite both parties signing up to it last April, no progress had been made.

Health employers have condemned the strike action and said they are available for talks.