It is widely acknowledged that the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) plays a vital role in formulating the national response to increasingly complex and frequent threats to the public health. Some of those threats are very high profile in nature such as Ebola and Zika. 

However, since May 2016, the post of Director of the HPSC has lain vacant. Twice the HSE staged unsuccessful recruitment campaigns for the post, the second of which failed to elicit any applicants.

This is an extraordinary state of affairs and requires an urgent response from the HSE.

The settled position of the IMO is that medical specialists in Public Health ought to have the same terms and conditions as their hospital colleagues. While no one solution will make the HSE and attractive employer for specialist medical talent, we believe parity of terms and conditions is a vital element in ensuring that this situation is addressed, and that others like it do not arise in the future.

You can read a copy of the IMO letter to the HSE here