The Irish Medical Organisation is threatening to reactivate strike action among non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs) if health employers fail to implement an agreement reached last year.
"There are reports, recommendations and strategies being published in relation to the health service but few are being implemented," the newly elected president, Dr Mick Molloy, told his organisation's annual meeting in Killarney yesterday.
"This is evident in relation to the NCHD agreement and recently, when Cabinet only `noted' a report on working hours of NCHDs and the Medical Manpower Forum."
Mr George McNiece criticised the Health Service Employers Agency for again seeking clarification from the Labour Relations Commission.
"To request clarification on something that is already clarified is a complete abuse of the industrial relations mechanism . . . management should be setting an example in supporting the industrial relations mechanisms, considering the amount of industrial unrest in the country to date."
The NCHD agreement last year included proposals for monitoring off-site overtime payments as well as a system of training grants to enable NCHDs to undertake postgraduate education. The IMO is concerned at the level of refusals for these grants by employers.
The outgoing IMO president, Dr Liam Lynch, referred to the failure to attract recruits to all medical specialities. "The implementation of that failure becomes more obvious. Our profession is becoming increasingly unattractive to graduates and undergraduates. We must be given the resources to practise our profession in a manner satisfying to both our patients and ourselves," he said.
General practitioners will debate a series of motions tomorrow rejecting Government plans to extend eligibility to the General Medical Services which are not based on means testing.