NCHD industrial action is “still on the cards” if contract negotiations do not “meaningfully” progress, according to the IMO NCHD Chair.
Speaking at the national NCHD meeting at the IMO AGM on 11 April, Dr Rachel McNamara said the 2022 NCHD agreement included a commitment to negotiate a new contract. The agreement, which introduced new rostering rules, averted industrial action by NCHDs on unsafe and illegal working hours.
A motion carried at the NCHD meeting called on the HSE to “engage in meaningful contract talks to address the many issues facing NCHDs, including continued breaches of legal working hour limits, breaches of contract and to improve the working lives of our doctors”.
Introducing the motion on behalf of the NCHD committee, GP trainee Dr Laura Finnegan referenced the protracted nature of the process. She said it was “important to keep bringing this forward as part of our manifesto… to keep pushing for it”. Another motion called on the HSE to address the “continued failure” to fully implement the 2022 agreement.
It cited the need for elimination of 24-hour shifts in all sites and specialties; full compliance with the rostering rules and provision of compensatory rest; introduction of a centralised payroll system for HSE and voluntary hospitals; and implementation of the agreed sanctions process for hospitals for breaches of the agreement and the Organisation of Working Time Act.
Furthermore, the meeting disputed the compliance numbers provided by the HSE and sought a full review of compliance with the average 48-hour working week and 24-hour shift. It said this should be based on payroll data rather than rosters, and for sites to be fined for both breaches of the agreement and for failure to provide data on compliance.
Dr McNamara told the meeting there had been “zero momentum in the talks until very, very recently”. She said the talks resumed in March and were due to recommence at the end of April.
“However, if that doesn’t proceed in a meaningful way in the next short while, we will have to then deem that there is no… good faith on their side to actually get towards an agreement, and that would be a breach of the agreement we reached in 2022.”
Dr McNamara told the Medical Independent (MI): “We have been clear that if we don’t proceed with momentum and open discourse, and start reaching some level of agreement… by the summer or early autumn, we will have to seriously consider activating or relooking at the mandate we had in 2022 when this was agreed originally, as it is going on too long at this stage.”
She emphasised that too many patients and doctors were at risk from unsafe working conditions.
Asked at the AGM if she considered the HSE and Department had shown a lack of commitment to the NCHD contract talks, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill told MI: “I don’t believe so.”
Also speaking to this newspaper at the meeting, HSE CEO Ms Anne O’Connor said: “The contract negotiations are back and very much proceeding. That is our focus. So we need to make sure those contract discussions conclude and we have a new contract for NCHDs.”
Ms O’Connor said the HSE could not run services without NCHDs and it must ensure they are “acknowledged and valued”.
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