Workers in the health service who are in dispute with management over the changing of light bulbs and over pushing patients into theatre were told yesterday by Minister for Health Mary Harney to "cop themselves on".
Ms Harney said it was incredible that even though 11 out of 53 porters on the staff of the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick were out sick last Tuesday week there was still no porter available to wheel a young woman to theatre for emergency surgery. She had to be pushed to theatre by a manger, assisted by her parents.
"People need to cop on. Changing a light bulb and wheeling a patient to a theatre have to be addressed sensibly and pragmatically and it is not acceptable to anybody, and least of all to me, that we would have these kinds of demarcation lines in 2007," she told reporters in Dublin.
"For God's sake, anyone can change a light bulb, and the idea that you would have to call to the bedside of a patient who might want to read a book an electrician to change a light bulb in 2007 is just not acceptable," she added.
Pat Condon, of Siptu, which represents porters at the Limerick hospital, claimed that a porter in a theatre had offered to wheel the young woman to theatre but had been stopped by a line manager. Ms Harney's reference to the light bulb dispute concerns a row between electricians working for HSE South and management over when people other than electricians should be allowed to change light bulbs at Cork University Hospital.
This dispute, which also concerns benchmarking payments and on-call arrangements, escalated earlier this week when 38 workers refused to answer bleeps or mobile phones. They were then suspended from the payroll by the HSE.