“if we lose our Consultant base, the health service will start collapsing from the inside and patients will suffer”

Tuesday 28th January 2014. The two committees representing Consultants and Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors (NCHDs) in the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) have issued an unprecedented Joint Statement warning of the rapidly emerging crisis in our hospitals as Government policy forces both consultants and our future consultants to seek work elsewhere.

In a statement today, the two committees said that Government policy was directly responsible for driving consultants away from the Irish health service; “Consultants are being driven away by uncompetitive pay scales on the one hand and by a hostile, chaotic working environment on the other.” The two committees have warned that “if we lose our consultant base, the health service will start collapsing from the inside and patients will suffer.”

Speaking today Prof Trevor Duffy, Chairman of the Consultant Committee of the IMO said; “the system is breaking down and consultants are voting with their feet. They are leaving the country in unprecedented numbers and they are declining the opportunity to even apply for jobs around the country because they know that their salaries will be uncompetitive and their working conditions will be intolerable.”

Dr. John Donnellan, Chairman of the NCHD Committee of the IMO said; “The Government is asking NCHDs to work in chaotic circumstances without competitive packages and they are simply refusing to do so. If the Government was trying to establish at what point consultants would say enough is enough, they have found it and they have gone past it.”

Prof Duffy called on the Minister for Health to take immediate steps to tackle this crisis; “There is a mechanisms within the Haddington Road Agreement which the IMO will engage with in order to alleviate this crisis and plan for the future.”

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