There is growing discontent among hospital consultants at the failure of the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, and his Department to address the capacity crisis in Irish hospitals, the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association has said.
As members of the association gathered in Limerick last night for their 15th annual conference this weekend, its secretary general, Mr Finbar Fitzpatrick, said the shortage of beds in the system, combined with recent bed closures, had left accident and emergency units in crisis all summer.
Furthermore, he said, the bed shortage had resulted in urgent elective patient admissions being cancelled on a daily basis.
Closed beds, he said, caused maximum disruption to patient care. "And there is an air of pessimism and discontent among consultants as they face the increased patient demands of the winter period," he warned.
A total of 709 additional beds were pledged by the Government in 2001, but as of June of this year only an extra 303 were available for the treatment of patients.
The 1,000-plus members of the IHCA will have an opportunity to convey their views to the Minister when he addresses their annual banquet tonight.
Meanwhile Mr Fitzpatrick said consultants were worried that there seemed to be little or no planning for the manpower crisis which will arise in Irish hospitals next August when the working hours of non-consultant hospital doctors will have to be reduced in line with a new European work directive.
The Department of Health, in an attempt to prepare for the directive, commissioned the Hanly report on medical staffing, but it still has not been published.
Its publication is now 10 months overdue, Mr Fitzpatrick said.
The consultants will today discuss the Government's health service reform programme based on the Brennan, Prospectus and Hanly reports and will call on Mr Martin to begin negotiations with a view to implementing reform.
"Consultants will be saying with one voice that they have had enough of procrastination and they want implementation," Mr Fitzpatrick added.
They will also discuss the fall-out from the Medical Council's report on Dr Michael Neary, who was struck off after he was found guilty of professional misconduct over the removal of 10 patients' wombs.