Public health doctors vote for industrial action

PUBLIC health doctors last night voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action, claiming the Department of Health had continuously delayed negotiations on a number of issues.

Last night the country’s 270 public health doctors and Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) members returned ballot papers with a majority 94% voting in favour of industrial action.

The date and type of action will be decided at a public health doctors’ committee meeting next Tuesday. However, an IMO spokesperson said an all-out strike was likely.

Public health doctors are responsible for managing and controlling infectious diseases such as meningitis, tuberculosis, the winter vomiting bug, food poisoning and bio-terrorism threats.

They are vital in identifying the source of contamination and necessary safety precautions that should be taken.

Dr Fenton Howell, chairman of the IMO Public Health Committee, said a delay in implementing the Brennan Review Report, had led public health doctors to believe that the department did not consider public health doctors a priority.

The Brennan review, which was initially due to be completed as far back as 1996, was not published until April 2002. It recommended a number of initiatives, including a new structure for public health doctors working in the community and the expansion and enhancement of Departments of Public Health.

“As a matter of urgency, the Brennan Report, also recommend that a formal out of hours arrangement be negotiated and put in place. We are all too familiar with the ongoing threat of a bio-terrorist attack. To date the Government has failed to organise on-call rosters of public health doctors in order to heighten preparedness for any potential bio-terrorist threat, as well as the management of infectious diseases on an out of hours basis,” said Dr Howell.

A Department of Health spokesman said the minister was disappointed with the doctor’s decision. “We are disappointed with the decision. We don’t believe that industrial action is the way to deal with this. We feel that the State’s industrial relations mechanisms should be used to find a reasonable solution,” he said.

IMO director of industrial relations Fintan Hourihan said a previous statement by Health Minister Micheál Martin urging the IMO to use all industrial relations machinery before considering strike action was ironic, since the department had rejected outright the IMO’s proposal to refer to the matter to the Labour Relations Commission.

“This rejection by the Department of Health and the HSEA to exhaust all available industrial relations machinery has regrettably left the IMO with no alternative but to take this course of action,” he said.