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Delay in alcohol labelling a ‘serious threat’ to public health warns IMO

By Mindo - 25th Jul 2025

Dr Anne Dee
Dr Anne Dee

The Government’s decision to delay the planned rollout of alcohol health information labelling, is a “serious threat to public health”, according to the IMO President.  

Dr Anne Dee, a Consultant in Public Health, said the delay “until 2028 at the earliest”, places corporate interests ahead of the health and wellbeing of Irish people.

The Government’s action would result in preventable incidences of cancer, increased incidences of liver disease, and harm to children “because of a refusal to fully enact a bill signed into law seven years ago”.

Dr Dee added that the labelling provisions under the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 are a critical tool in reducing alcohol-related harm, particularly when Ireland “continues to experience worsening rates of liver disease, alcohol-related cancers, and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder”.

“This is about giving people the basic information that alcohol causes cancer, liver damage, and harm during pregnancy. These are irrefutable facts. There is no excuse for keeping them off the label,” she said. “The longer this Government delays, the more irreversible damage is done.”

The IMO President further criticised the influence of “vested interests” in opposing the measure.

“We welcome the fact that the Government recently reiterated its refusal to meet with representatives of the tobacco industry in keeping with Ireland’s obligations under international frameworks that recognise health-harming industries. But why is the alcohol industry, which produces a substance that results in the deaths of up to 1,500 people in Ireland every year, treated differently?”

Dr Dee reiterated that the full implementation of all measures in the Public Health (Alcohol) Act “must happen” without any further delay.

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Government claims new Sláintecare plan provides ‘path’ to universal healthcare

By Mindo - 14th May 2025

weekend discharge
iStock.com/Spotmatik

A new plan aims to “forge the way towards accessible, affordable, high-quality, healthcare”, according to the Government.

The document, Sláintecare 2025+, was published today.

Critical views on Sláintecare were expressed the recent IMO AGM in Co Kerry. Doctors passed a motion calling on the Government to “clarify” its plans for Sláintecare. During the debate IMO President Dr Anne Dee questioned the implementation of the policy, however, she said the original aims of Sláintecare, such as multi-annual funding, are worth pursuing.

Today, the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill  described the Government’s commitment to health reform as “unwavering” and that the new document Sláintecare 2025+ provides a path to universal healthcare. 

“The full implementation of Sláintecare remains one of the most significant reform programmes ever implemented by the State,” said the Minister.

She added that the success of this new action plan will be demonstrated by “waiting times continuing to fall, the number of people on trolleys continuing to fall [and] the cost of healthcare for families decreasing.”

The Minister today also published the Sláintecare Implementation Progress Report 2024.

As already reported in the Medical Independent last month, this new report shows a reduction in the cumulative daily 8am trolley count over 2024, with numbers down 11 per cent compared to 2023, despite an 8 per cent increase in the number of patients presenting to emergency departments. The volume of weekend discharges (Friday – Sunday) from acute hospital beds increased by 15 per cent in 2024 compared to 2023, while total discharges increased by approximately 12 per cent.

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IMO warns regulation critical to combat ‘malign force of pornography’

By Reporter - 25th Apr 2025

IMO Regulation

The IMO has warned that the introduction of regulation to safeguard children from increasingly extreme pornography is of critical societal importance, saying that children as young as ten are being exposed to violent and upsetting content on a regular basis.

Dr Madeleine Ni Dhalaigh, member of the GP Committee of the IMO, said that pornography today was fuelling sexual and gender-based violence, with aggressive anal penetrative intercourse which can be harmful for females and non-fatal strangulation among the acts being normalised and widely available to view online.

Dr Ni Dhalaigh is speaking at a panel discussion entitled ‘The Malign Force of Pornography in Fuelling Sexual and Gender Based Violence’ at the IMO AGM in Killarney today (Friday).

She said: “The scale and pace of change in pornographic material compared to just a few short years ago has been overwhelming and disturbing. Now, pornography increasingly features extreme acts including gender-based violence, which are not only potentially physically harmful to participants but also are changing the sexual norms in society among young people in particular.

She said that regulation was critically important to ensure that children were not exposed to this material. “There is unfettered access to pornography online, and children as young as ten years old are viewing content which is both upsetting and deeply problematic.

The impact on both young men and women has been profound, with many of them learning about sex from violent pornography. This informs young men to frequently push boundaries, have normalised coercion and condomless sex, and frequently disregard female pain and discomfort in order to satisfy male partners.

“The onus is on the Government to urgently introduce regulation which would prevent children from viewing this material.”

https://www.imo.ie

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IMO AGM to hear how inequality in Ireland is impacting public health

By Reporter - 24th Apr 2025

Credit: iStock.com/Maks_Lab

The incoming President of the IMO has warned that health inequalities in Ireland are having a “disastrous” impact on public health. Dr Anne Dee, a Consultant in Public Health Medicine in the Mid-West region, was speaking ahead of the AGM of the IMO which takes place in Killarney from today (Thursday) to Sunday. Dr Dee will become IMO President this evening as the AGM begins.

Dr Dee warned that communities on the margins in Ireland are suffering from far poorer health outcomes than those with access to better housing, education and work opportunities. She said that these differing health outcomes represented a “cauldron of future problems for the State”.

The AGM will hear a motion calling on the Taoiseach to establish a cross departmental group to address health inequality in Ireland. The motion calls for the group to be tasked with addressing the social, environmental and commercial determinants of health and to develop a fully funded plan to reduce the levels of inequality.

Dr Dee said: “We cannot let inequalities grow and then expect to deal effectively with the results that then occur. Comprehensive multiagency programmes and targeted outreach from the State are critically important to reverse what is a worrying and damaging trend.”

The AGM will also feature a panel discussion on the role of pornography in fuelling sexual and gender-based violence. There will also be a session on confronting the care deficit for patients with severe and enduring mental illness. On Saturday, the meeting will hear from the CEO of the HSE, Mr Bernard Gloster.

Other issues that will feature at the meeting include the costs of overdiagnosis and investigation, how to navigate the care deficit for patients with severe and enduring mental illness, the need to urgently invest in bed capacity and doctor numbers, and the ongoing impact of the HSE Pay and Numbers Strategy on patient care.

On the issue of resources, Dr Dee called on the Government to introduce a realistic, multi-annual funding programme which meets the needs of the growing and ageing population, and which would allow doctors to deliver quality treatment.

“The perennial short-term thinking of successive governments has had a seriously detrimental effect on the health service,” she said.

“We need to see a multi-annual approach to funding which acknowledges the complex needs of our population and which addresses the fact that we do not have enough doctors in this country, that those who are working here are burnt out and overworked, that waiting lists are too long, that capacity is too stretched, that morale is too low and that doctor recruitment and retention is too challenging.”

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IMO calls for urgent action to tackle threat of social media companies to health of young people

By NiGP - 01st Sep 2024

IMO calls for urgent action to tackle threat of social media companies to health of young people

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has called for a change in how the Irish authorities respond to the “clear threat to the mental health of young people” that social media platforms pose. Prof Matthew Sadlier, Chairman of the Consultant Committee of the IMO, was responding to a call from the US Surgeon General for warning labels to be put on social media platforms to warn users of their association with negative mental health impacts.

Prof Sadlier said that the actions taken by the US Surgeon General had “profound significance” and reflect the “absolute confidence” medical communities have across the world in the “real danger” these platforms carry, particularly for young users.

“Social media companies need to prove safety before launching new products and innovations rather than governments retrospectively looking for harm,” he said.

The issue of the harm caused by social media featured prominently at the most recent AGM of the IMO in April. At that event a series of motions were passed calling for:

  • A ban on smartphone use by pupils within primary schools;
  • A well-funded public health strategy to combat social media addiction, use, and harm (on the lines of the tobacco-free policy);
  • The Attorney General and Department of Justice to investigate the possibility of taking a legal action against Meta based on their products’ detrimental effect upon youth mental health (similar to a case being taken by 42 US Attorney Generals).

Prof Sadlier added: “The evidence is mounting that these platforms pose a real threat to the mental health of young users. There is an urgent need now to move at pace to protect users from the dangerous, harmful, and addictive practices which the owners of these platforms deploy against their users in order to boost their bottom line. Our children will only have one childhood and we need to ensure that it is a safe one.”

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HSE staffing restriction ‘does not bode well’ for NCHD contract talks – IMO

By Reporter - 15th Jul 2024

The IMO has welcomed the lifting of the HSE’s recruitment embargo. However, it has warned that the retention of a “restrictive staffing ceiling” from December 2023 means that chronic resourcing and staffing issues cannot be adequately addressed, which is a “patient safety issue”.

Dr Rachel McNamara, Chair of the NCHD committee, said: “While the IMO welcomes the lifting of the embargo and the introduction of new development posts, it is disappointing that a staffing ceiling has been set from December last year, which means services can only hire at that resourcing level. This is unsatisfactory as there now cannot be any service expansion at a time when health services are extremely understaffed and under significant pressure to meet rising demand from a growing and ageing population.”

A recent IMO survey demonstrated that 77 per cent of NCHDs are currently working beyond safe and legal hours. “The HSE has itself acknowledged that an additional 800 NCHD posts, targeted to certain sites, are needed to bring this cohort’s working hours back to a maximum of 48 hours per week. This staffing ceiling means this is unachievable and does not bode well for the commencement of NCHD contract talks later in the year. When doctors are overworked and under-resourced, it leads to poorer outcomes for patients, and we will continue to fight for NCHDs to ensure this cultural working environment is changed.”

 She added: “For too many years doctors and other healthcare staff have worked in a system that has significant deficits in terms of capacity and workforce. While this may offer some relief as newly vacant posts can now be filled, it is not the long-term solution we need. It is critically important that healthcare delivery be funded on the basis of service demand. Government and the HSE point to a drop in activity levels, however unless we staff each hospital and every community service appropriately it will simply be impossible to improve patient care and address wait times.”

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has also expressed concern about “extremely limiting caps” on the number of healthcare staff.

INMO General Secretary Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: “The decision by the Health Service Executive to put extremely limiting caps on the number of nurses, midwives and other healthcare professionals that can be recruited into the public system at both community and hospital levels will impact on the ability to provide safe care to patients.

“There have been vacancies across all community settings and in wards in each hospital since the recruitment freeze was imposed last November. The INMO conservatively estimates that there are over 2,000 nursing vacancies alone. When you couple this with the fact that over 3,500 new hospital beds are due to come on stream across the country, it is hard to see how these beds can be opened safely.

“The only way to ensure safe staffing is a given is to pass and enact the Patient Safety (Licensing) Bill in order to give HIQA more powers. This landmark piece of legislation gives HIQA the powers to ensure its recommendations are being enacted by individual hospitals and healthcare settings it inspects.

“The INMO will be meeting the HSE tomorrow morning where we will be setting out the need to ensure that patient safety is at the centre of the lifting of the recruitment moratorium. Our members want to provide safe care in a timely manner, they cannot do that if they are working in a system that is always playing catch up on itself due to self-imposed recruitment controls.”

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IMO responds to publication of consultant productivity data

By Reporter - 11th Jul 2024

The IMO has said that further examination into hospital productivity is needed in order to understand the factors influencing productivity and the measures required to improve the situation.

The IMO was responding to the publication today (11 July) by the Department of Health of health service productivity data and insights (available here – https://www.gov.ie/en/collection/e22bb-productivity-and-savings-taskforce-indicator-dashboards/ ).

Prof Matthew Sadlier, Chair of the consultants’ committee of the IMO, said: “While we welcome the publication of this productivity data today, it is important to note that the kind of blanket approach of comparing hospital sites is of little value in terms of understanding what is happening at individual hospital level. 

 “There are multiple factors that could be influencing this trend and which have not been addressed in this report, such as consultant access to clinics, level of MDT supports across all sites; patient treatment complexity and case mix; urgent versus non-urgent care; and access to diagnostics, beds and theatres which may mean that patients are making repeat visits to manage their conditions while awaiting inpatient care.”

The IMO noted correspondence from the HSE in June 2024 which acknowledges that key factors affecting productivity are not considered in the data. It said that “there are a number of reasons why there will be variances [in productivity] between hospitals, within clinical specialties”. These include the delivery of care through multidisciplinary teams; different types of consultant outpatient work; and greater inpatient demands.

 Prof Sadlier said that it was in everyone’s best interests to see productivity improve. “The IMO has repeatedly called for the introduction of measures that will enable consultants to see more patients. The trend identified in this report needs further analysis so that all the factors at play are understood and appropriate supports put in place. Blaming consultants is not the solution.”

He added that the IMO was increasingly concerned about waiting list numbers and the lack of capacity in the system.

“Our chronic shortage of bed capacity and the ongoing recruitment freeze have resulted in ever-lengthening waiting list numbers which in many cases are resulting in poor patient outcomes. A properly resourced and funded plan is urgently needed to ensure our system can deal with both urgent and non-urgent care and any investigation into hospital productivity needs to take all factors into account.”

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NCHDs rotating around country ‘with few practical supports’

By Reporter - 08th Jul 2024

The IMO has reiterated the need for urgent cultural and systemic changes to “convince NCHDs to stay practising” in the Irish health system.

Today (8 July) is Changeover Day, which sees NCHDs rotate to new hospitals for either three, six or 12 months. It is also the first working day for interns.

The IMO has said the ongoing recruitment freeze means that NCHDs are being forced to work even longer hours and additional shifts at very short notice. This pressure is exacerbating an “already dismal working environment”, which routinely sees NCHDs obliged to work excess hours in contravention of the European Working Time Directive.

Dr Rachel McNamara, Chair of the NCHD committee, said: “Changeover Day sees thousands of NCHDs rotate around the country with few meaningful practical supports, upending family life and causing a huge amount of frustration. In addition, most graduate doctors are entering the workforce with huge debts which will take years to repay. If we want to retain our doctors and sufficiently recruit for the future, it is imperative that we change the way we treat them.”

Dr McNamara said that a recent survey conducted by the IMO highlighted the poor working conditions facing NCHDs. “The results of our survey were disappointing but not at all surprising. Among the findings were that three-quarters of NCHDs do not feel valued, respected and supported by their employer; over eight-in-ten say they have routinely worked over 48 hours a week in the past three months; and three-quarters are unsatisfied with the work-life balance their current role offers them.”

She said urgent change was needed. “If nothing is done, we will lose another generation of doctors to other health systems that value their contribution and crucially, offer them the kind of work-life balance that should be a feature of our health system. We need action and unprecedented reform in a number of areas, including working hours, supports, and realistic childcare options.”

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NCHDs still pressurised to fill rota gaps on days off

By Catherine Reilly - 11th Apr 2024

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Most NCHDs continue to be pressurised to fill rota gaps on their rostered days off, heard the NCHD meeting at the IMO AGM on 6 April.

NCHD committee Chair, Dr Rachel McNamara, presented findings of an IMO survey of NCHDs on workplace issues. Some 77 per cent reported being pressurised to work additional shifts in lieu of a locum being found.

“This is something we have seen consistently,” stated Dr McNamara at the meeting in Killarney. “We have seen evidence of [NCHDs] being directly messaged on their days off and very much pressurised – that is how it feels to be told, look, if you don’t come in, your co-SHO or intern colleague will be left to do more work, or they will have to stay on potentially overnight.

“This is very much unacceptable in that there is no other profession, I would think or hope, that would see that level of being pressurised to come into work when you had not been rostered.”

Dr McNamara said the onus contractually is on the clinical director or employer to determine if there is a requirement for a locum and to make the necessary arrangements.

The IMO’s survey also found that 83 per cent of NCHDs reported having to routinely work, on average, over 48 hours per week in the previous three-month period. Dr McNamara said this practice breached the Organisation of Working Time Act and NCHD contractual rights.

Twenty-two per cent of NCHDs reported working more than two 24-hour shifts in a two-week period. Dr McNamara said this figure was somewhat more reassuring, although she added that not all specialties have 24-hour shifts in place.

The 2022 NCHD agreement, which introduced new rostering rules into the NCHD contract, requires that no NCHDs should have to work more than two 24-hour shifts in a two-week period (it allows for a third shift in exceptional circumstances).

The NCHD meeting passed a motion calling on the HSE to immediately rescind the recruitment freeze on NCHD non-training posts to ensure “the integrity” of the 2022 agreement is upheld.

It also called on the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and HSE to publish a fully funded implementation plan for the NCHD taskforce recommendations and to engage with the IMO on same.

At the conference, Minister Donnelly said a meeting with the IMO is scheduled in the coming weeks. He said he has asked officials to use this meeting to “work through an engagement process” on a new NCHD contract.

He told IMO delegates he fully endorsed the recommendations in the final report of the NCHD taskforce, published in February, “and we’re getting on with implementing them”.

Speaking to journalists, Minister Donnelly said consultant numbers had grown by 1,000 in the lifetime of the Government. He said as the consultant body grows the “unreasonable asks” of NCHDs, including 24-hour shifts, would decline.

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