Hospital dispute - Safety or money issue?

Public hospitals face strikes next Tuesday after a failure to resolve the dispute with junior doctors over their long working hours.

Common sense should dictate that the HSE insists on hospitals giving junior doctors humane hours. Yet even its most benign proposal is for a maximum of 24-hour shifts by early next year.

The Irish Medical Organisation wants sanctions against hospitals that demand such ungodly hours but it is mistaken in seeking those sanctions to be in the form of extra pay for members. This is either a safety issue or a money one and health of patients and doctors should be paramount.

After all, would you be happy to board a transatlantic flight piloted by someone who had already worked round the clock?

Yet, on occasion, your life may be placed in the hands of a doctor subjected to such cruel conditions.