HOSPITAL services are "stumbling from one waiting list crisis to the next", Dr James Masterson, president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, told its annual general meeting at the weekend.
He said the hospital system was one "in which increasingly the rights and interests of patients are subordinated to budget targets".
Dr Masterson added: "A budget driven policy applied rigidly to health, leaves in its wake, a trail of human misery. As doctors we are acutely aware of escalating costs for palliative drugs and interim care. Sadly, administrators, he added, are apparently oblivious to this reality".
Dr Masterson said the association represented almost 1,000 consultants and "should continue single mindedly to assert our entitlement to appropriate remuneration for our expertise both in public and in private hospitals." He stressed our age old right to clinical independence and the "right to manage our patients without interference from non medical administration".
Referring to the Tierney report on medical manpower, Dr Masterson said that if the 1,000 non contracted hospital doctors working 65 hours a week were taken out of the system as Dr Tierney suggests, they would have to be replaced by 2,000 consultants working 33 hours per week.
On salaries of £40,000 a year the 1,000 NCHDs would be paid £40 million a year, whereas the 2,000 consultants at £70,000 would cost £140 million, a difference of £100 million. Dr Masterson said the recommendation to have 50 per cent more consultants with a build up of secretarial and ancillary services with some small reduction in NCHDs might be possible.
Dr James Murphy, consultant training officer, said medical negligence insurance cost Irish consultants £20 million a year and rising. A conservative extrapolation of this figure, he said, to take account of "defensive medicine" precipitated by the increased medical negligence litigation, would bring this to £100 million a year.
However, Prof William Binchy said it was still harder to win a medical negligence action than one for employers' liability or for road accident injuries.
The consultants supported the Hederman O'Brien report's philosophy of "zero tolerance" of sexual abuse in hospitals but unanimously opposed proposals to allow for the immediate suspension of consultants.
A motion was carried unanimously rejecting any proposals to diminish consultants' contractual security, as followed the recent investigation into allegations of sexual abuse against a consultant in Drogheda, who is now retired. It was learned that over 35 allegations are with the office of the DPP arising out of the those complaints.