Consultants reject Martin plea to defer industrial action

HOSPITAL consultants have rejected a call by Health Minister Micheál Martin to defer industrial action while Government efforts to secure insurance cover for past malpractice claims continue.

Members of the 1,500-strong IHCA have threatened to withdraw from all but emergency work.

Hospitals and health boards are now putting contingency measures in place to deal with the crisis.

"It is strike action and it will compromise patient care," Mr Martin warned yesterday.

While "slow progress" was being made in negotiations between his department and the Medical Defence Union (MDU), it was wrong for the consultants to press ahead with industrial action before the talks had concluded.

"It is not our wish to have consultants out there without being protected," the minister said at a special briefing on the issue.

"We have been told that the MDU might unilaterally try to withdraw from its historical liabilities. We have consistently told the consultants' organisation that we will in such cases provide full legal backing and indemnify any consultant taking action against the MDU to force them to meet their responsibilities," he said.

But, he said, consultants were now undermining the Government's negotiation position by effectively siding with the MDU. Irish Hospital Consultants Association general secretary Finbarr Fitzpatrick said they were unwilling to defer their industrial action at this stage. The association, which represents 85% of consultants in the country, have already withdrawn from administrative work and are refusing to co-operate with the department.

From next Monday, the consultants will suspend all National Treatment Purchase Fund work in all hospitals.

Mr Martin said it was unacceptable that public patients waiting longest for treatment should be targeted.

"While we accept that progress has taken place between the department and the MDU over the past week we are not willing to defer our action because the matter should have been resolved last year," said Mr Fitzpatrick.

He also claimed the department had reneged on promises made to the IHCA last year. "Unless there is an acceptable solution by Sunday, February 22 next we are going ahead as planned," he stressed.

Irish Patients Association chairman Stephen McMahon, however, agreed some space should be created to allow the "very difficult" negotiations between the department and the MDU to conclude.

The patients' advocate group has also accepted an invitation to meet senior officials of the MDU next Tuesday to hear their side of the issue.

"We recognise the right of IHCA members to take industrial action and share and acknowledge their concerns. But we don't agree with patients being used as pawns by any party in an industrial dispute," said Mr McMahon.