Consultants to meet on strike action
The move could lead to the cancellation of non-emergency surgery and outpatient appointments early in the New Year.
An extraordinary general meeting of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) would have to be convened to approve the plan first. The IHCA national executive is meeting today to decide whether to call the general membership together for a vote.
The row stems from a decision by the Medical Defence Union (MDU), the organisation which indemnified Irish consultants against malpractice claims before the State indemnity scheme kicked in earlier this year, not to cover claims arising from incidents pre-dating the State’s involvement.
The Department of Health argued it should only have to fund claims that arose from incidents that took place after it stepped in to replace the MDU and the two sides have been in stop-go discussions since last February.
In the meantime, the IHCA said 16 of its members had been left in a legal limbo because claims had been lodged against them and no organisation was responsible for funding their defence.
The Department of Health proposed at talks this week that it would fund the legal costs of the claims while continuing discussions with the MDU on the issue of liability for any eventual awards made by the courts.
But the IHCA said this was not satisfactory and its members were angry that Health Minister Mary Harney expected them to enter separate negotiations on a review of their work contract while such an important issue was outstanding.
“We need an undertaking from the Government that they will pay any court awards and continue negotiations with the MDU,” said general secretary, Finbarr Fitzpatrick. “We can’t get presume they will reach agreement with the MDU before one of those 16 cases comes to court.”
The review of the contract is required before aspects of the health service reforms can be implemented but Mr Fitzpatrick said negotiations could not get under way without a guarantee from the State on the indemnity issue.
Meanwhile, the first of three weeks notice of industrial action by the trade union, IMPACT, elapsed last night without any sign of talks between the union and the new Health Service Executive which is overseeing health reform.
Informal contacts were expected to take place over the weekend. Impact’s 25,000 health workers voted overwhelmingly last week to refuse cooperation with the reforms unless they got specific guarantees about working conditions.
