SF pledges pay rise and location grant to health workers

Pay rises for health service workers and special location allowances for nurses are among the measures Sinn Féin would take to address the crisis in the health service, the party's leader said yesterday.

Speaking at the launch of Sinn Féin's health strategy, Mr Gerry Adams said the troubles in the health service had been brought about by design rather than accident. It was the legacy of 18 years of cutbacks by Fianna Fáil and the Rainbow governments, he said, and political parties who were not interested in achieving social equality.

"None of the establishment parties is truly interested in equality," said Mr Adams. "All the parties' strategies support private health care and the two-tier system. But if we decide as a people that equality is what we want, that recruitment of healthcare specialists is a priority and that the contribution of junior doctors, nurses should be properly valued, an equitable, single-tier public health system is achievable."

He called for the establishment of an all-party cabinet committee which would "bring forward a focused and integrated plan for the strategic transformation of the health system" as a matter of urgency.

Some 28,000 people were awaiting hospital treatment, women were four times more likely to die from treatable cancer than their European counterparts and there was a five-year waiting list for orthodontic treatment for children, he said.

"At the same time, there are critical staff shortages," said party candidate in Dublin South Central Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh. "There are over 15,000 registered non-practising nurses and we have to ask why they are not attracted back into the service and why young people are not attracted in." He said the issues of unattractive pay and long hours would be addressed urgently by Sinn Féin.

The party would increase health funding to 9 per cent of GDP, from the current rate of 6.5 per cent.

It also proposes the extension of medical card eligibility to all under-18 year-olds and those in full-time education; to set up free and prompt cervical and breast screening for all women over 40 and teenage girls; more public health nurses and more support for carers in the home.

Mr Adams said these aims would entail "taking on the vested interests of the most powerful minority in the health services - the consultants", as well as removing tax incentives for private health care.