The possibility of a compromise to allow talks on the rostering issue to take place was hinted at yesterday by the Minister for Health and Children, Padraig O'Morain Irish Times Health Correspondent reports.
Mr Martin told The Irish Times "there would be flexibility on both sides" if discussions resumed at the Labour Relations Commission. The Irish Medical Organisation had asked for the disputed rosters to be suspended to allow for talks to take place. However, Mr Martin disagreed with the IMO version of the events surrounding the dispute.
The IMO says the Medical Manpower Taskforce, which is to report in December, is the body charged with recommending how the reduction in the working hours of non-consultant hospital doctors is to be implemented (employers say the July change in rosters is a step towards bringing about this reduction).
It has called on employers to put off implementing new rosters until after the taskforce has reported.
But Mr Martin said the process was never meant to wait on the taskforce report. Everybody understood that the work of reducing working hours would commence this July, he said. A demand for a reduction in working hours had been central to the threatened dispute by the doctors in 2000. The agreement reached with the IMO at that time, he said, had added €100 million per annum to the overtime bill.
Mr Martin said changes in rosters had been agreed in other health board areas. As regards the disputed rosters at the Midland General Hospital, Tullamore, he said one doctor there would have his working hours reduced from 96 to 86 per week. "We shouldn't be on strike over issues like that," he said. The Minister alleged that agreement on rosters had been reached with doctors in Tullamore but that this agreement had been rejected by the IMO at national level.
The IMO has objected to new rosters introduced in July on the basis that they reduce training opportunities for non-consultant hospital doctors because they will spend less time in the hospital during the busy daytime hours. Mr Martin said training hours at Waterford Regional Hospital had risen from 28 to 32 per week.
"There always has to be flexibility," he said when asked if any moves might be made by the employers to allow talks to proceed. He had asked the IMO to defer industrial action so talks could take place without a deadline hanging over them.