'Undervalued' public health doctors to get update on long-awaited pay deal

Their new contracts should have been in place by July, and tomorrow the Irish Medical Organisation will meet Department of Health officials to find out when - if at all - the contracts are coming in. Picture: Pexels

Public health specialists tomorrow expect to hear when the government intends to honour a pay deal struck more than a year ago.

The specialists, who have been campaigning for the new contracts for the past 17 years, were labelled as "the unsung heroes" in the Irish health service for more than 20 years by Acting Chief Medical Officer Ronan Glynn at Monday's Covid-19 briefing.

Their new contracts should have been in place by July, and tomorrow the Irish Medical Organisation will meet Department of Health officials to find out when - if at all - the contracts are coming in.

An IMO spokesperson said it expects the Department of Health to today "proposals and timelines to address this long-standing issue".

Our Public Health Specialists are Ireland’s front line defence against COVID. For too long their expertise has not been recognised with consultant status. We hope that tomorrow when we meet with the DoH there will be constructive proposals on addressing this as a priority.

— Irish Medical Organisation (@IMO_IRL) September 8, 2020

Earlier this year the Irish Examiner highlighted that the Public Health Medicine system was in danger of “collapse” because the Department of Health had not fulfilled an agreement to give public health specialist doctors consultant status and contracts more than a year after they promised to do so.

The fact that public health specialists were not mentioned in the Programme For Government was described by their representatives on the IMO as “a slap in the face”.

They said the country’s 92 public health doctors, who have led Ireland’s response to Covid-19, feel “betrayed” as a result.

In June, a Department of Health spokesperson told the Irish Examiner: “The matter is being progressed as a matter of priority.”

A letter was sent to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly just over a week ago warning of a "dangerously depleted workforce" among public health specialists when the country needs them most.

Dr Glynn told reporters on Monday evening: "Public health medical specialists are very much the unsung heroes. They have done a phenomenal job.

They are a tiny community doing a very undervalued and underappreciated job in this country for the last 20 years. And they have really come to the fore over the past six to eight months.

The Irish Examiner understands Minister Donnelly is “very keen” to resolve matters.

It is also understood the issue over contracts “is closer to being resolved” than at any time in the past year.

Both sides last met in July when the minister made it clear he “fully supports” public health specialist demands and was making them “an immediate priority”.

However, action on the issue depends on his ability to make sure current emergency pay legislation that prohibits public pay hikes gets amended.

Consultant status and contracts were promised as part of a pay and productivity agreement in 2019.

It was struck between the IMO, the Department of Health and the HSE to avert strike action in January 2019 and was due to be fully implemented by July 2020.

Much of the increased productivity aspect of the agreement was fast-tracked due to the Covid-19 crisis.

But despite the public health specialists taking on all the extra work ahead of schedule, they didn't get the extra pay they were promised.

Public health doctors earn €113,000-a-year while consultants earn up to between €195,000 and €199,000.

Earlier this year, public health specialists warned that if they were to work to the letter of their existing contracts “the public health service would collapse”.