The Health Service Executive (HSE) has rejected a claim that it blames doctors for the problems in the health service.
IMO President Dr Asam Ishtiaq
In a statement this evening, the HSE said that at no time had it blamed doctors, or any other health service staff, for the current crisis.
It said that only recently its chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm had told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children that it was unfair to blame consultants for such problems.
"What the HSE is critical of, and what needs to radically change, are some of the outdated work practices which exist within our hospital systems; practices which do not serve patients or staff and sometimes manifest themselves in people waiting an unacceptable length of time for diagnostics, out patient appointments and both elective and emergency admissions," it added.
Earlier today the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) claimed that doctors were being unfairly blamed by the Government and the HSE for the lack of reform in the health service.
The organisation said despite the Government's "negative spin and baseless blame" the crisis in the State's accident and emergency departments and the hospital services is a capacity problem.
IMO President Dr Asam Ishtiaq said politicians had their "heads stuck in the sand" and were intent on blaming everyone else but themselves.
Dr Ishtiaq said: "Until this Government accepts the necessity to replace the thousands of beds removed due to cutbacks in the 1970s and 1980s, we will continue to have a crisis."
He said he had never seen morale among the medical profession so low and the situation so bad in the past 15 years of service.
"It is an impossible task to get patients to hospital beds directly for timely and planned care," he said.
The IMO today published a position paper on obesity ahead of its three-day annual conference in Kerry on April 20th.
Dr Ishtiaq said: "In the past decade, the prevalence of overweight and obesity has escalated alarmingly, to the extent that the World Health Organisation has described the problem as a global epidemic.
He said: "People who are obese have a greater risk of developing a range of medical conditions - including diabetes and heart disease - compared to people who are not." Currently 39 per cent of the adult Irish population are overweight and 18 per cent are classified as obese.
The IMO says the Minister for Health Mary Harney needs to implement immediately the findings of the National Taskforce on Obesity.
It is also recommending that all snack and drink vending machines be removed from State-owned educational and health premises in recognition of the crises.
It also wants to see classroom time spent on teaching children about nutrition and healthy lifestyles.