Health unions offer help to save vaccine programme

Ireland's three main health service unions told Health Service Executive (HSE) management today they want to help find ways to preserve the cervical vaccination programme for young girls.

The programme, which was announced earlier this year, has been postponed as part of the Government's spending cuts.

Representatives from Impact, Siptu and the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) resumed talks with HSE management this afternoon to discuss work practice reforms as part of a plan to deal with the HSE's 2009 budget shortfall of about €350 million.

Speaking in advance of today's meeting, a spokesperson for the unions said they would seek to have the cervical vaccination programme included in the discussions, with a view to identifying savings that would allow it to proceed as originally planned.

"We all know that 2009 is going to be a difficult year in terms of funding and all the unions are keen to find agreed ways of protecting the range and quality of services as far as possible, particularly services to the most vulnerable. As part of this process, it shouldn't be impossible to identify what could be relatively minor changes required to save cancer vaccinations for 12 year-olds. We hope that HSE management will respond to this initiative in the spirit that it's proposed," said Impact national secretary Kevin Callinan

The cervical vaccination programme for 12 year-old girls was estimated to cost close to €10 million a year.

There has been strong opposition to the shelving of the planned programme and Fianna Fáil suffered a blow last week when Donegal TD and former Cabinet minister Dr Jim McDaid abstained on a Fine Gael motion calling on the Government to reverse its decision to postpone the programme.

The unions have been putting forward alternative ways of finding savings in a series of meetings with HSE, which they have described as "difficult".

The unions said they believe that the Health Forum, which is designed to deal with service delivery problems in the public health services, could assist in meeting budgetary and service challenges in 2009. The new partnership deal, agreed earlier this week, commits all parties including the HSE to engage in the forum.