Time for action on health inequality – IMO President

Irish Medical Organisation, Annual General Meeting, The Europe Hotel and Resort, Killarney, Co Kerry, 24-26 April 2025

The establishment of a cross-departmental group to address health inequality is a “good idea” once it is action-focused, the new IMO President Dr Anne Dee has told this newspaper.

At the IMO AGM 2025, members passed a general motion calling on the Taoiseach to establish a group tasked with addressing the social, environmental, and commercial determinants of health inequality. According to the IMO, such a group should also be charged with developing a fully funded plan to reduce the levels of inequality.

However, it was vital that such a group was focused on action, Dr Dee told the Medical Independent (MI).

“We’ve heard a lot of talking in this country about health inequalities and social determinants of health, but we have done very little about it,” said Dr Dee, Consultant in Public Health Medicine.

“So if it leads to a sort of ‘health-in-all-policies’ type of Government initiative, then [that would be] excellent, yes.”

The social determinants of health was a major theme on the opening day of the IMO AGM in Co Kerry, with a panel discussion on social and commercial drivers of health inequality in Ireland.

During her address, Dr Dee outlined that marginalised communities suffered from far poorer health outcomes than those with access to better housing, education, and work opportunities. She said society cannot allow inequalities to grow and then expect to adequately deal with the results.

On Saturday morning, the national public health and community health doctors committee debated a number of motions dealing with the impact on public health teams of the HSE Pay and Numbers Strategy.

“This is an issue,” Dr Dee told MI. “So for us as consultants in public health medicine, our teams are all multi-disciplinary, there are very few other doctors on our teams. So it’s very difficult to recruit now [for the teams].”

She added the Pay and Numbers Strategy was “making life very difficult” and “needs to be resolved”.

A motion passed by the committee expressed members’ “concern” at the impact of the strategy on community and public health services, “where the loss of individuals can have a significant impact given the small size of teams.”

A further motion was passed calling on the HSE “to introduce greater flexibility” to allow for recruitment of senior medical officers, as well as multi-disciplinary teams in public health.