Several hundred junior doctors are expected to hold lunchtime protests outside hospitals around the State on Wednesday to highlight employment conditions which can sometimes involve working up to 100 hours a week.
Service at the hospitals is planned to continue as normal during Wednesday's protests - the same day the Government is to meet the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO). The meeting will centre on the issue of long working hours for non-consultant hospital doctors.
The meeting was requested by the IMO after the Government backed a delay in the introduction of a 48-hour working week for junior doctors at the EU Council of Ministers meeting last month.
The IMO was disappointed at the delay in implementing the EU directive, which would have brought junior doctors' working hours in line with those of other professions.
However, the IMO's industrial relations executive, Mr Fintan Hourihan, yesterday called on the doctors to let the meeting proceed before taking any action: "People should reconsider any such participation before the meeting has taken place." If the Government's response was not satisfactory there could be the possibility of industrial action further down the road, he said.
A scaled-down service had originally been planned by doctors at the 30-40 hospitals where Wednesday's protests will take place. Yesterday, however, an intern at Wexford General Hospital said there would be no interruption to service during the protest period between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. "We are just going to have our lunch outside the hospital instead of in the canteen, and normal service will continue," he said.
Lack of training, excessive hours and poor pay and working conditions were the main causes of concern. Some doctors on call have been
forced to sleep on casualty trolleys. Such conditions were damaging to the health and safety of doctors as well as patients, Mr Hourihan added.
If the situation does not improve it will mean the State would be "producing `yellow pack' doctors going around in a zombie-like stupor . . . with most consultants being chosen from those who have trained abroad," he said.
Planned slogans for the day include one relating to the popular US hospital drama ER: "Even Carter from ER gets a bed at night."