If the settlement proposals due to be issued by the Labour Court today are rejected by the Nursing Alliance, the Government must intervene and appoint a respected arbiter to facilitate compromise and avert a potentially dangerous situation, the Association of General Practitioners said yesterday.
The arbiter would have to be of high standing and could perhaps be a judge, the association's newly elected chairman, Dr Patrick Crowley, said.
"Acknowledging the difficult position the Government finds itself in relation to the social partnership agreements, it is nevertheless essential that urgent consideration be given to a proper career structure for those in the nursing profession, and current anomalies be dealt with without further delay," he said.
At its recent annual meeting, the association unanimously backed an emergency motion supporting the nurses' dispute. The fact that 1,400 nurses had left the profession in the last year and that many hospitals were now having to curtail services pointed to a massive problem emerging in our health services, Dr Crowley said.
"As we see our patients, in the GMS [General Medical Service] particularly, wait longer and longer for essential services and waiting lists get to unacceptable lengths, we wonder is there anybody up there whose head is above the sand?"
The nurses' dispute over pay and conditions was just part of a greater problem facing the health services, the association believed. Allied to the nurses' problems was a threat to medical manpower at non-consultant house doctor [NCHD] level.
The number of junior doctor applications fell from 1,000 two years ago to just 34 this year, Dr Crowley claimed. Of these, 17 had been approved for temporary registration. forget the crisis in health care in the country," Dr Crowley said. "It is of the utmost urgency to develop proper career structures for the nurses and NCHDs," he added.
The Government, the Irish Medical Organisation and the Irish College of General Practitioners have had discussions about structures for entry and exit for various aspects of medical practice, he said.
Existing structures were poor, particularly for training doctors, Dr Crowley said.