Public-health doctors to resume work today

Public-health doctors are to end their 10-week strike today and return to work.

Public-health doctors are to end their 10-week strike today and return to work.

Settlement proposals from an adjudication board and the Labour Relations Commission are to be voted on by the 270 doctors over the next fortnight.

The deal is being recommended by the public-health doctors' committee of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), which met yesterday.

It also decided that doctors should return to work while the ballot, to be completed by Friday, July 4th, is taking place.

READ MORE

The doctors, whose work includes the control and surveillance of infectious diseases, picketed health boards, hospitals and the National Disease Surveillance Centre in a protest over pay and working conditions.

Their return to work is based on a complex set of proposals put forward by the Labour Relations Commission in talks last week.

The issue of pay was referred to an adjudication board, which recommended that public-health directors and specialists receive an 11 per cent pay increase backdated to July 1997, with a further 2 per cent rise from July 1999.

Area medical officers are to receive an 8.5 per cent increase from July 1997 and a further 2 per cent increase from July 1999, as well as two long-service increments valued at €1,250 each.

A continued medical education grant of €1,500, previously valued at £500, is also to be given to the public-health doctors.

Agreement was also reached on grading structures.

Other proposals from the Labour Relations Commission will result in some aspects of the dispute being dealt with at a later stage.

The issue of a structured out-of-hours service is to be the subject of negotiations to be concluded by September.

Another claim for certain senior public-health doctors to be given consultant status is to be referred to the review body on higher remuneration in the public service.

In a statement yesterday, the IMO said the back-to-work formula covered pay increases due under a former partnership agreement, the PCW, as well as implementation of a review of the role and responsibility of public-health doctors, chaired by the former secretary general of the Department of Health, Mr Declan Brennan.

The settlement proposals have been accepted by the Health Service Employers' Agency.