Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)
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I will be brief. I apologise for being late; I was speaking in the Dáil. I welcome the doctors. My last direct involvement in the hospital service was approximately 15 years ago. It was an issue then and clearly it remains an issue. It is a more serious issue now because as the doctors have said the complexity of the work and the workload is entirely different today from what it was ten or 15 years ago. There is no comparison with the type of work, the level of work or the complexity of the work that is done at this stage. I can confirm from my experience the veracity of the comments on rosters. The fact is that in most hospitals the published rosters bear no resemblance to what junior doctors work at and the hours they put in. As the doctors have said, in many cases they may start at 7.30 a.m. or 8 a.m. depending on the time the consultant starts his rounds, on how long the clinics last and how many additional patients are added to the clinics.

There is no comparison between the published rosters and the actual work done and hours worked by junior doctors. It is another indication of the head in the sand attitude of the HSE. I am in agreement with the point raised by the doctors in their submission that the key difficulty with the HSE in this and quite a number of other areas concerns the lack of consultation. It is appalling that in a whole range of issues the HSE simply refuses to consult stakeholders, people on the ground, staff and others who have a genuine interest and stake in the delivery of services. That is a fundamental difficulty. Until we solve that problem, there will be significant difficulties right across the health service, not just with regard to non-consultant hospital doctors.