Hospital consultantsJust €500,000 of insurance cover stands between hospital consultants and the Department of Health for the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) to enter negotiations on a new contract.
IHCA sources confirmed last night "there is a keenness to get into contract negotiations" but the cap at which the Government will underwrite an insurance claim must be lowered to €500,000 for all consultants.
Currently, the State Claims Agency will underwrite claims in excess of €500,000 against obstetricians who are considered to be in the high risk category and €1 million for other specialists. However, medical defence organisations have signalled that specialities such as neurosurgery and orthopaedics will soon be classified in the same risk category as obstetrics, thus prompting the IHCA to seek a lowering of the indemnity cap for all consultants.
Finbarr Fitzpatrick, the IHCA general secretary, confirmed that the organisation and the Department of Health had remained in contact on the issue since a meeting on September 13th. However, he said "nothing concrete" had yet emerged from these contacts with the secretary general of the Department of Health, Michael Scanlon.
Speaking in advance of the association's annual meeting in Galway this weekend, Mr Fitzpatrick said "a special national council meeting has been arranged for Friday night to consider a recommendation should a proposal in the insurance liability cap emerge in the coming days".
Referring to the views expressed by a number of politicians, including the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, concerning the importance to the health service of a revised contract for consultants, Mr Fitzpatrick said: "I reject the notion that a new contract is the solution to health service problems. We need more doctors and additional medical student places. And other staff contracts will have to be renegotiated."
Commenting on the views expressed by the Minister for Health Mary Harney in an interview in the HealthSupplement last week that the present consultant contract needed "greater clarity and transparency", Mr Fitzpatrick said: "Where is the lack of transparency? There is adequate monitoring of the current contract. Consultants' schedules are easy to monitor.
"Every patient that comes in the door is logged. The statistics are there in hospitals to show the volume of work being done both in the public and private system. What else they require I do not know," he said in response to the Minister's claim that there was a need for a less rigid contract that monitors outcomes in the public system.
While welcoming Ms Harney's wish to see a full-time public hospital work option in a new consultant contract, Mr Fitzpatrick said there was need for clarification "whether this means working in public hospitals only or does it mean seeing only public patients in hospitals".
The Irish Medical Organisation has already decided to begin contract negotiations with the Department of Health.