Doctors on call: GPs march to Dáil
Gareth Linehan and his daughter Grace (2), from Mitchelstown in Cork, were among the hundreds of doctors who marched to the Dáil calling for better investment in the GP care system. Patients in some areas are waiting 10 days for a routine appointment.
EFFORTS were under way last night to allow for more cancer operations to go ahead today as thousands of nurses take to the picket line again.
There is growing concern about some patients whose cancer surgery was cancelled during previous strike days.
The HSE said yesterday it was in discussions with striking nurses to grant more exemptions to let more major operations, including cancer surgery, to proceed.
“In the event that any procedures do go ahead, patients will be contacted directly by the hospitals,” said a spokesman.
Hospital and health services in the community will struggle to cope today as a third 24-hour nurses strike shuts down services for another 40,000 people.
It comes as patients are facing potentially one of the worst weeks of industrial turmoil in recent history as 37,000 nurses prepare to walk off the job for three days in a row.
They will be joined by 6,000 psychiatric nurses between Tuesday and Thursday next week. Ambulance staff will add to the health service chaos as they plan to strike on Friday.
The paramedics, who are members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association’s ambulance personnel branch, also announced stoppages on February 28 and March 1 in their separate dispute over union representation.
Major concerns have also emerged about the impact of a ban on overtime by 6,000 members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association. This daytime ban has now been extended to overnight.
About 15 nurses at the Phoenix Care Centre in Grangegorman in north Dublin, who started their shift at 8pm on Tuesday night, were still working late yesterday because they were not able to get enough staff to relieve them.
Night shift staff were also unable to leave other mental health services in Ballinasloe, Portlaoise, Mullingar and St Joseph’s in Portrane.
The union said this highlighted the huge reliance on overtime and agency staff due to problems of recruitment and retention.
Despite a major push by the Government to find a way to get the main nursing unions back to talks, there was no breakthrough in the row over a pay rise yesterday.
Neither side is likely to refer the dispute to the Labour Court or ask the Workplace Relations Commission to intervene unless there is some prospect of success.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has already turned down an attempt by the Government to hold new talks on condition that pay is not on the table.
Sources said the Government side had been in touch with the State mediation bodies and was exploring “various angles”.
A spokeswoman for Health Minister Simon Harris said the Government continued to “proactively seek innovative ways to resolve the dispute”.
Meanwhile, hundreds of GPs from around the country converged at a rally outside the Dáil yesterday warning that general practice is in crisis.
Dr Maitiú Ó Tuathail, president of the National Association of General Practitioners, which organised the protest, said there were 26 communities without GPs across this country.
“With 700 GPs about to retire in the next four to five years, and newly qualified GPs choosing Dubai over Dublin, many more communities will be left without a GP,” he told the gathering.
Patients in some areas are waiting 10 days for a routine appointment. The GPs want cuts in fees they are paid for treating medical card holders that were imposed during the recession to be reversed.