Public health doctors decide to go on strike

Doctors responsible for managing the control of infectious diseases in the State will go on strike on Monday week over pay and other issues.

The strike, by the State's 270 public health doctors, had been delayed for two weeks because of the war in Iraq but will now start on 14th April.

The doctors, who are members of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), have been on a work-to-rule over what they claim is a failure by the Department of Health to implement a report published last April recommending that they be on call round the clock to deal with threats to public health.

The report, conducted by former Department of Education secretary-general Mr Declan Brennan, also recommended public-health doctors be put at an equivalent pay rate to hospital consultants.

The IMO vice-president and chairman of the Public Health Committee Dr Joe Barry said: "This was not a decision taken lightly. The failure of the HSEA to engage in meaningful negotiations has forced doctors to serve notice ofstrike action."

Public health doctors' primary work includes health promotion and the surveillance and control of infectious diseases such as meningitis, winter vomiting bug, SARS and food poisoning.

Under the work-to-rule they have withdrawn from national committees and are refusing to provide cover for colleagues. They have also been refusing to participate in planning to deal with bio-terrorist threats.

The industrial action has been criticised by the Health Service Employers' Agency (HSEA) as "wholly unjustified and unwarranted".

A HSEA spokesman said the pay issue remained within the industrial relations process and that the HSEA was willing to return to the Labour Relations Commission to discuss it at any time.

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Health said he was calling on the IMO to have the outstanding issues dealt with in the Labour Court.