Doctors will meet next Wednesday to decide on strike action

Junior doctors' representatives will meet next week to decide whether to embark on a series of one-day strikes at different hospitals or opt for an all-out strike.

The meeting of the non-consultant hospital doctors committee will take place at the IMO headquarters on Wednesday at 4 p.m.

Dr Mick Molloy, chairman of the committee, said options on the forms of industrial action open to the NCHDs would be discussed.

"These will be refined and then sent out to all junior doctors to vote on. It will be totally democratic. I have no idea yet which form the action will take."

Last night the assistant general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr Tom Wall, said the claim by NCHDs for a shorter working week was not in conflict with the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness.

He said it was intolerable that anybody be required to work 100 hours a week or longer in hospitals.

This means the IMO would not be prohibited from taking industrial action by the industrial peace clause of the national agreement.

None of the five hospitals thought most likely to be hit by a strike has any contingency plan on how to proceed.

If the option of an all-out strike is not chosen, management sources speculate that those hospitals which were "named and shamed" by the IMO as the worst offenders in their treatment of junior doctors at its conference in Killarney last week would be the first hit.

These are St Vincent's University Hospital and Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, both in Dublin, Cork University Hospital, Galway University Hospital and Limerick Regional Hospital.

The most likely care services to be affected would be out-patient clinics, elective admissions and elective surgery. A spokeswoman for Limerick Regional Hospital said it was "not in a position to announce contingency arrangements until such time as more details of the industrial action emerge".

The waiting list for beds in Limerick Regional Hospital, as of yesterday evening, was 1,522, the largest number being 650 people waiting for ophthalmological care.

A spokesman for the Mid-Western Health Board said its NCHDs were paid overtime "on the basis of average worked hours per speciality and available funding".

Our Lady's Hospital also said it had no plan of action in the event of a strike, saying it was awaiting details from the IMO.

Ms Norma Deasy, spokeswoman for the Southern Health Board, said it had received no official notification of a strike.

"If we get such notification, the board will seek an immediate meeting with union representatives. And we would then be in a position to make contingency plans. And at all times our priority will be patient care," she said.

Neither St Vincent's University Hospital nor University Hospital Galway was able to provide a spokesperson.

Meanwhile, consultant members of the IMO have said they support the NCHDs in their decision "to take whatever action is necessary to resolve their ongoing grievances".

A statement said: "The IMO, which represents over 600 consultants, strongly rejects claims being made by health employers that consultants are to blame for the long working hours being experienced by NCHDS."

Dr Kate Ganther, chairwoman of the IMO consultants' committee, said the demand on hospitals had increased dramatically and it was more than 30 years since a report (Fitzgerald report) was published which was intended to modernise the health service.

"In truth the Irish hospital service is suffering from low-grade chronic crisis which is getting progressively worse," she said.