Plans by striking public health doctors to only consider requests to deal with possible SARS cases if they are made by the chief medical officer of the Department of Health, Dr Jim Kiely, have been condemned as dangerous.
Dr Kiely, in a letter to the Irish Medical Organisation yesterday wrote: "In this instance, the demand you make of me is that I would insert myself into the clinical management of patients without their consent and without any statutory or ethical mandate to do so, directly interfere with the autonomy and professional responsibilities of senior doctors, including your own members, and undermine the local clinical and public health decision-making process which is the essence of sound management of SARS.
"Undue delays in the management of SARS cases would be inevitable with potentially serious clinical and public health consequences. In my view, the line of action you propose disregards many of the tenets of modern medical practice and patient autonomy and is therefore dangerous; it is, in any practical sense, impossible to implement and, if undertaken by me, would immediately leave me open to possible allegations of professional misconduct."
The IMO's president, Dr Joe Barry, said the union had decided to only consider requests by Dr Kiely because there had been a number of instances where doctors left picket lines to deal with possible SARS cases that turned out not to be cases at all.