Micheál Martin, Health row continues
Plans for industrial action by various sections of the medical profession will be announced in the coming days.
Delegates from the medical profession discussed the issue at the Irish Medical Organisation's annual conference in Killarney today.
Striking public health doctors have described the Minister for Health, Micheál Martin, as 'a bully', and warned they will not return to work until a proper public health system is in place.Public health leader Dr Fenton Howell, said the Minister's threats against named individuals were appalling, and he called on the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) to investigate the Minister's behaviour.
Mr Martin angered delegates at the annual conference when he reprimanded senior health officials in what he described as positions of leadership and authority, for their 'total abandonment of responsibility' in dealing with the SARS virus.
He was specifically referring to the eight directors of public health and the head of the National Disease Surveillance Centre, Dr Darina O'Flanagan.This morning, several doctors described how they had come off picket lines to work on the suspect SARS cases in Dublin and Waterford.
Public health doctors are often on call at night, weekends and during holidays for no pay, because no structured out of hours service has been put in place by the Department.
The doctors, all members of the IMO, are looking for higher salaries and a structured 24 hour service for infectious diseases.George MacNeice, the chief executive of the IMO, told the doctors that the Minister's advisers 'have lost the plot'. He said he believed that talks could start in an effort to break the deadlock in the coming days.
