DOCTORS were being forced to communicate with their patients at bedsides in obsolete, Victorian style wards, within earshot of other patients, the president of the Irish Medical Organisation, Dr Hugh Bredin, told the final session of the conference.
Furthermore, Dr Bredin said, due to lack of facilities doctors often had to communicate with patients relatives in corridors rather than in privacy.
"It is my opinion that every major hospital ward should have a nurses office, doctors office and consultants office, so that not just communication, but all the business of organising the care of patients, can be implemented in a proper manner.
During his student days and as a young doctor, Dr Bredin went on, bedside medicine was central to all activities, and communications skills were taught and acquired to a high level.
"Perhaps since then the stress inducing points system, followed by the factual overload in medical school, and the advent of `high tech' medicine has driven a wedge between the doctor and the patient," he said.
"While this is unavoidable, hopefully the revised medical curriculum being advocated will reduce the volume of didactic teaching, introduce more practical training and increase the level of student patient contact with greater opportunity to learn and acquire appropriate communication skills."
The IMO had not yet debated in depth the issue of moving from a consultant led to a consultant provided service, as proposed in the Tierney report.
He added that the organisation would not be against the concept of gradual change if the question of the onerous rosters and excessive emergency duties of consultants was resolved adequately during the next round of contract negotiations.
However, the proposal to lock as many consultants as possible into on site geographical whole time contracts, would not achieve greater productivity in public hospitals and would run counter to the consensus views of the social partners in the PESP.
Also, the Department of Health's suggestion of introducing a specialist consultant grade would not be acceptable to the IMO, and the organisation remained to be convinced that the creation of a permanent non-consultant hospital doctor grade would be in the best interests of doctors in training or the health service.