Strike plans to be outlined

Plans for an intensification of industrial action by public health doctors will be outlined early next week following an angry debate today at the annual conference of the Irish Medical Organisation.

Delegates at the meeting in Killarney, Co Kerry, were incensed by remarks made in a speech to them yesterday by Health Minister Micheal Martin, who has been under fire because of the Government’s handling of the threat posed by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

Mr Martin accused the doctors of a “total abandonment of responsibility” by staging a strike over pay and conditions at the height of the Sars menace, which has led to a number of suspected cases in Ireland.

Final tests undertaken on two of the suspected cases, both women, one Chinese and the other Irish, are still awaited, although both are expected to prove negative.

The Government has come under attack for allegedly failing to comply with World Health Organisation guidelines in confronting Sars.

Today’s conference prominently featured claims that the minister had acted in a bullying fashion through his comments – and calls for an escalation of the action being taken by the doctors.

The expectation is that other members of the IMO, such as general practitioners, consultants and junior doctors, will now lend full support to their colleagues, probably by taking action of their own.

The IMO has already rejected an invitation to talks on the dispute under the auspices of the Labour Relations Court conciliators.

Organisation spokesmen pointed out tonight that a number of striking doctors had left their picket lines specifically to help check out the suspected cases of Sars.

For his part, Mr Martin claimed the IMO delegates had over-reacted to what he said at the conference.