The mood at the IMO conference was curiously low key, writes Dr Muiris Houston
Even the impressive sight of a new Air Corps rescue helicopter rising majestically from the grounds of the Dunloe Castle Hotel in Killarney on Saturday did not lift the mood of delegates attending the annual meeting of the Irish Medical Organisation.
Occasional efforts to elevate proceedings at this curiously low-key affair never got beyond the hovering stage before gently settling back on the ground.
Given that this year's gathering of doctors from all craft groups took place in the middle of an escalating nurses dispute, the flatness of the event was something of a surprise. And with consultants being pressurised by Mary Harney to accept the filling of new posts in absence of an agreed contract, even this group of doctors failed to spark proceedings.
A closed meeting of hospital consultants to discuss negotiations finished with no visible angst against the Minister for Health or the Health Service Executive. In fact the emphasis was on not rising to a perceived Ministerial tactic to escalate the dispute.
So the message is clear: tolerate, under protest, the advertisement of new posts this week, while toning down any rhetoric about not co-operating with the shortlisting and interviewing of new consultants.
Those involved in the talks process chaired by Mark Connaughton SC felt that a lot of progress had been made in the last few weeks and were hopeful that a meeting today would yield positive developments.
Others, however, were of the view that the process has been designed not to succeed in order to provoke confrontation.
One prominent consultant said it was time "to take a step back and reflect on the range of contract options needed to energise our hospitals". His view was that it was unrealistic to place the burden of transforming hospital systems on rushed industrial relations negotiations.
Asked why the mood at the meeting was relatively flat, one doctor said it was akin to having "no dance partners". In other words, in the absence of engagement by the Health Service Executive, GPs, public health specialists and non-consultant hospital doctors felt as if they were going over old ground with no real sense of how to make progress.
Public health doctors said it was impossible to make progress while issues affecting them were parked at a review body and the Labour Court. So their speciality meeting ended unusually early.
Senior non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs) pointed out that some specialist registrars would experience a pay drop if they accepted new public-only consultant posts with a salary of €180,000. But they too are stalled, awaiting progress on the implementation of the European Working Time Directive.
General practitioners were promised a draft new contract before last year's IMO annual meeting. A year later and with still no sign of a contract, GPs are frustrated. They say they are being asked to do more and more work traditionally carried out in the hospital sector but with no additional remuneration in return. But even a heated debate around this topic was short-lived.
So there is a feeling of lost opportunity for health service reform. With no real dialogue or sense of movement, expectations are low. In her presidential address, Dr Paula Gilvarry said "we must regain our position as decision makers and of significant members of a team that plans and delivers health for all".
But in the absence of dance partners who share this vision doctors will have to sit it out, at least until the music changes.