The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has warned Health Service Executive (HSE) hospital management at South Tipperary General Hospital that it will not tolerate a situation where Non Consultant Hospital Doctors (NCHDs) are expected to work for nothing amid disagreement over overtime payments.
According to the IMO, some 58 NCHDs at the hospital in Clonmel were issued with a memo by management recently which stated that only rostered and unrostered hours arising from work in theatre, outpatient clinics and ward rounds would be paid.
"However, NCHDs often work late for reasons outside of those situations - even when ward rounds or outpatients finish, NCHDs have to finish paperwork while they also carry out other work such as getting blood tests and X-rays," the IMO spokeswoman said.
According to the spokeswoman, IMO representatives met management at Tipperary earlier this month and sought assurances that the hospital would adhere to last year's HSE-IMO agreement on payment of consultant- approved unrostered overtime.
"At our meeting, hospital management refused to give such assurances.
"The IMO and NCHDs in South Tipperary consider this to be a provocative move.
"While the hospital claims that the hospital is not breaching the agreement, the facts contradict this," she said.
"Management clearly stated that even if a consultant approves unrostered overtime, 'it may or may not be paid'.
"The IMO can consider this as nothing but a breach of the agreement on unrostered overtime," said the IMO spokeswoman.
"The result is that doctors may have to work long hours without knowing whether they will be paid and there will be effects on patient care, eg if paperwork cannot be completed and is supposed to be left until the following day, then this slows discharges of patients."
Non-consultant doctors at Tipperary are due to be paid their overtime in two weeks and the IMO has advised them to keep records of any unrostered overtime and take note if any is unpaid, according to the IMO spokeswoman.
She added the IMO would ballot on industrial action if necessary.
The HSE said that hospital consultants were aware of the occasions in which unrostered overtime can be approved and the HSE strongly denied it was planning to refuse to pay unrostered overtime approved by consultants.
The HSE said it had an obligation to monitor and control its medical pay budget and in issuing the memo it was clearly stating the patient service issues where it would pay unrostered overtime to NCHDs.
"They are [ in the areas of] theatre overruns, outpatient clinic overruns and ward rounds and, as such, hospital management does not believe that any agreement with the IMO has been contravened," said the HSE in its statement.
The conflict over overtime payments at Tipperary is the latest in a series of disputes between the IMO and the HSE regarding overtime payments.
Similar disputes are already surfacing at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin and Mercy University Hospital in Cork.