Junior Doctor Ongoing Crisis Needs Action

Commenting on the decision of the Irish Medical Organisation to go ahead with the one-day industrial action by junior hospital doctors on 8th October, Dublin South West representative Seán Crowe TD said:

“It is very regrettable that this action is going ahead this week but understandable given the lack of progress by the Minister for Health and the HSE in resolving the underlying issues at the heart of this dispute.”

Crowe said that the uncertainty surrounding Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and  whether they had given a commitment to provide whatever resources are needed to implement any agreement reached with all the parties involved, also needs to be clarified.

The doctors are demanding an end to shifts of more than 24 hours and a guarantee that the 48-hour week will be in place at the end of next year.

Deputy Seán Crowe said:

“Promised progress on the crazy long working hours of junior doctors is years overdue. After the long delay and now the Health Service Executive’s timeframe of the end of next year for the implementation of the European Working Time Directive (under which no junior hospital doctor should work more than 48 hours per week) it is no surprise that talks between the HSE and IMO broke down on the absence of any real sanction on hospitals who do not comply.

“The junior doctor stoppage is also fundamentally about patients’ safety and life threatening decisions that are being asked to be made by exhausted individuals.

“Repeatedly, and as late as last week in the Oireachtas, Sinn Féin called on the Minister for Health, James Reilly, to ensure progress in reform of hospital medical staffing, in medical training and recruitment to ensure compliance with this Directive.

“The Minister needs to recruit and deploy doctors in sufficient numbers to guarantee safe practice, better working conditions and overall improved care for patients.These are underlying issues that need to be resolved or else the crisis with junior hospital doctors will re-occur on a regular basis.

“In the Dáil during questions the Minister did not or could not reply when asked if the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform had given a commitment to provide whatever resources are needed to implement any agreement reached with all the parties involved.

“We know that progress was made in the talks between the HSE and the IMO before the breakdown and I would hope that, even now at this late stage, progress can be built on and industrial action by junior doctors can be avoided.”