Impact, the public sector union, has questioned the ability of the Minister for Health to deliver on the Primary Healthcare Plan because of what it called "crippling shortages" of key personnel.
The union said Mr Martin's planned new multi-disciplinary primary care teams could not be implemented because of the dearth of occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech therapists who are identified as integral to the team. IMPACT national secretary, Mr Kevin Callinan, said the Minister's plans would require a greater increase in the numbers of these specialists than was estimated in a manpower report by Dr Peter Bacon earlier this year.
Mr Callinan said the report had called for a fourfold increase in the number of speech therapists, a 150 per cent increase in the number of occupational therapists and a doubling of the number of physiotherapists . "Those figures now look grossly inadequate if the Minister's plans for primary health teams are genuine," he said.
SIPTU's national nursing officer, Mr Oliver McDonagh, said there was a suggestion that primary care teams "are going to help ease congestion in the hospitals. I don't think that's realistic. The people on trolleys in hospital corridors are not people who can be treated at primary care level."