Fines if doctors’ hours breached
The sanctions, which range from maximum yearly fines of €225,000 for small hospitals, €350,000 for medium-size hospitals, and up to €650,000 for the main teaching hospitals, were key to resolving the stand-off between the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) and the HSE which last week led to a one-day strike and cancellation of procedures and outpatient appointments for about 7,400 people.
The financial sanctions will be deducted on a monthly basis until the hospital achieves compliance.
Barry O’Brien, the HSE’s national director of human resources, said the sanctions could best be described “as a method to incentivise compliance”. He said there was “an agreed formula” for application of sanctions, depending on how many junior doctors were working at specific sites.
The sanctions would only apply where the EU working-time legislation was breached, or where hospitals fail to implement measures required to secure compliance by December. The deadline will be Jan 14 in “exceptional circumstances” he told RTÉ Radio.
As well as the financial sanctions, managers responsible for ensuring compliance may be penalised.
Mr O’Brien said they had the “ultimate sanction” of either reassigning responsibility for working time compliance to another manager or “assigning a different manager to that job”.
The proposals, which came from the Labour Relations Commission (LRC), will be put to a ballot by the IMO’s Non- Consultant Hospital Doctor committee, which is recommending acceptance.
The ballot will be completed by Nov 14.
Eric Young, assistant director of industrial relations with the IMO, said he believed the system now in place “does give the best chance” of achieving what they were looking for but that ultimately it was a matter of trust.
“Ultimately it’s a measure of trust.. of the HSE achieving what it says it will do... failure to do that will result in a greater difficulty holding onto doctors.”
Mr Young said meetings are ongoing on-location to establish a clear picture of true working hours as a way of determining what needed to be done to make rosters compliant.
Mr O’Brien said they would be returning to the LRC in March to review progress. “We accept clear responsibility now to ensure we achieve what we set out to achieve within specified timeframes,” he said.
He said patients discommoded by last week’s strike would be accommodated as soon as possible. There are about 4,900 junior doctors in the country.
