Health boards will not be notified of any infectious disease outbreaks by family doctors in the coming weeks, if GPs begin industrial action in support of their public health doctor colleagues, write Eithne Donnellan and Dr Muiris Houston.
Sources have told the Irish Times that hospital consultants, who are members of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), may also go as far as cancelling elective hospital admissions in support of the State's 270 public health doctors who today begin their third week of strike action.
The escalation of the dispute which would cause chaos, would not, however, begin for at least a week. "We want to allow the Minister and his officials time to reflect on the unprecedented tactics which they have so far used in the public health doctors' dispute. But make no mistake, in the absence of an apology from the Minister or a resolution of the dispute, further action will commence," IMO sources said.
On Friday, the Minister, Mr Martin, accused the doctors of putting patients lives at risk and of a "total abandonment of responsibility".
Last night a Department of Health source said informal talks between both sides in the dispute took place over the weekend and they were hopeful an agenda for formal talks could be reached by mid-week.
However, the IMO's director of industrial relations, Mr Fintan Hourihan, said there were no plans for talks at this stage.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health's SARS expert group meets again today to discuss preparedness for an outbreak of the pneumonia-like virus. On the agenda will be new guidelines for the management of suspected cases and discussion on whether or not to ban athletes from SARS-affected areas travelling to the Special Olympics in the Republic in June. The group has sought the advice of the World Health Organisation on this and is expected to review it at the meeting.
It is expected the group will also question how there was such confusion last Friday over whether a Chinese woman with SARS-like symptoms was a suspect or probable case. A new communications strategy for imparting this type of information to the public will also be agreed this week.
The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, has meanwhile, invited senior public health officials to explain this week the State's response to the SARS threat.
The Irish Patients' Association called yesterday for an independent review of the handling of the woman's case "similar to the review of the events surrounding the sad death of Baby Livingstone".
Its chairman, Mr Stephen McMahon, also called on both sides in the doctors' strike to sit down and urgently settle the dispute. This required "maturity and professionalism on all sides", he said.
A helpline for members of the public concerned about SARS is likely to be operating by tomorrow.
In addition, information desks dealing with SARS are to open at Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports from this morning, offering advice to incoming passengers. Desks at the six regional airports will be manned by health board officials.
Immigration officers who may have to deal with suspected cases will be advised in the coming days of the protocols they should follow. They will also be issued with protective masks.
In Asia, there were more than 20 deaths from SARS yesterday. There were 12 deaths in Hong Kong, nine in China, two in Singapore and one in Taiwan.
The director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, Ms Julie Gerberding, said an effective vaccine against the virus was at least a year away.
However, the director general of the WHO, Ms Gro Harlem Brundtland, said yesterday it was still possible to contain the virus and prevent it becoming a worldwide epidemic.
Over the weekend, Dr Roy Anderson, an authority on infectious diseases at Imperial College London, said SARS could have a death rate of 10 per cent, almost twice as high as originally estimated by the WHO.