Health service managers are to meet representatives of doctors' organisations today to discuss their role in providing emergency cover in the event of a nurses strike. The Irish Medical Organisation, which has GPs and non-consultant doctors as well as consultants in membership, will be attending the talks and the Irish Hospital Consultants Association.
Some members of the IHCA have been critical of the stance taken by the nursing unions on emergency cover while the IMO has been more supportive. The IMO has already issued guidelines to members telling them not to do work normally done by nurses.
Yesterday the Nursing Alliance and Health Service Employers Agency failed to agree on national emergency cover guidelines. While considerable progress was reported at local level in the health services, a senior HSEA negotiator, Mr James Doran, said: "It still remains the position that it is not possible to give the public assurances regarding the level and extent of nursing care in the event of a strike."
SIPTU official Mr Oliver Mc Donagh also considered much progress had been made on devising cover. "As far as we're concerned no one is going to die as a result of the strike. Our war is with the Government, not the patients or the public."
However, the general secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses' Association, Mr Des Kavanagh, said management had been unrealistic in its expectations. "We have made a fair degree of concessions, but they realise now that they are going to get a strike that bites from day one."
The Irish Medical Organisation has issued guidelines to 4,300 doctors working in the health services, asserting that responsibility for ensuring adequate facilities are available to treat patients during the threatened nurses strike rests "firmly" with management.
In the event of the strike going ahead, the IMO has informed members they must ensure "adequate and safe resources" are made available to them by management "prior to commencing patient treatment" in hospitals.
The IMO guidelines also state that non-consultant hospital doctors should not carry out duties normally performed by staff nurses, "except in case of emergency". They recommend "that no action be taken which could damage the close professional relationship between doctors and nurses".
Its industrial relations executive, Mr Fintan Hourihan, said yesterday the IMO was emphasising the need for continuing dialogue between doctors and nurses so as not to undermine the latter. At the same time doctors must "safeguard the ethical and professional standards of patient care".
Shop stewards representing 6,000 non-nursing grade workers in the Dublin region met yesterday to review their position in the forthcoming dispute.
The president of SIPTU's 22,000-strong health services sector, Mr Jack Kelly, said he expected that his members would agree to work normally, but not to carry out duties normally performed by nurses.
The most problematic areas involve care attendants, ward attendants and orderlies, who interact with nurses all the time. Those grades are also seeking a review of their own.
Mr Kelly warned management that besides supporting the nurses, his members would be taking action "very early in the new year" on a long-running pensions claim.