Harney faces big battles in health
The Health Service Executive is threatened with industrial action on a number of fronts, with consultants, nurses, pharmacists and dentists on a collision course with health officials.
Health Minister Mary Harney yesterday withdrew a request she had made earlier in the day for talks with the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) on improved pay and a shorter working week, to be halted until the CUMH issue was resolved.
A threatened work-to- rule by nurses was averted two weeks ago when the INO and the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) began negotiations with the health employers. The unions are demanding a 10% pay increase and a 35- hour working week.
Executives of both unions are meeting this week to discuss progress in the talks. INO general secretary Liam Doran said if they are not satisfied, industrial action will begin on April 2.
Meanwhile, today’s deadline for agreement on a new contract for hospital consultants is unlikely to be met.
Talks chairman Mark Connaughton will meet both parties before presenting a report to the Government ahead of today’s Cabinet meeting.
Ms Harney yesterday stressed that it is the last day that the Government would consider the matter: “The Government cannot sit by and allow a situation to continue where we know we need 1,500 consultants and yet we are not in a position to recruit them.
“That process has to come to an end and tomorrow will be the last time the Government will be considering this issue.”
She said: “We cannot go on indefinitely. Remember, these talks have been going on in one form or another for quite a long time. Governments are put together in a week or two so we cannot take months and years in this case, negotiating with a key group of healthcare workers and not be in a position to recruit the essential manpower that we need.”
The future of the medical card scheme is also in doubt over a refusal by the HSE to negotiate on fees it pays to health professionals for services provided to more than one million patients on the scheme.
The Irish Pharmaceutical Union, which represents 1,600 pharmacies, said it will pull out of the drug payment scheme, the medical card scheme and the methadone scheme, if the HSE does not begin talks by the end of the week.
In a letter to pharmacists and dentists before Christmas, the HSE said it would decide the fees because to negotiate fees would be regarded as price fixing.
The Irish Dental Association is also threatening to pull out of the scheme.
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