Surgeries requiring heart-lung machines may have to be cancelled next week if the country\u2019s 25 perfusionists, who monitor the specialised machines during surgery, go ahead with a planned strike. <\/p>\n
The perfusionists are represented by the trade union F\u00f3rsa<\/a>, which has notified the HSE<\/a> of a one-day work stoppage next week and a two-day stoppage the following week. <\/p>\n F\u00f3rsa spokeswoman Linda Kelly told RT\u00c9 radio\u2019s Morning Ireland that the HSE had failed to engage with the trade union on contingency planning. \u201cWe\u2019re currently in the dark because the HSE haven\u2019t responded to quite a number of correspondence from us looking for engagement,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Kelly explained that any surgery that required the use of a heart-lung machine would be affected by the work stoppage. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about the most serious of operations and I\u2019d have to question the HSE statement in regards to contingency planning because contingency planning requires the union and the HSE to be meeting and to be talking together,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been available for the last 2\u00bd weeks since we notified of the industrial action and there has been no contact from the HSE with regards contingency planning.\u201d<\/p>\n There had been very poor engagement from the beginning of the dispute, which has been going on for two years, Kelly said. <\/p>\n In the past, perfusionists were paid the same rate as medical laboratory scientists but, in January 2024, the HSE \u201cdecided to break that pay link\u201d, Kelly said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Labour Court made a recommendation to restore it in January and the HSE has refused to implement that. When they say that they\u2019re willing to engage in discussion under local bargaining they forget to mention that there is not enough money in the local bargaining process to pay the claim and so they want us to enter into a discussion that cannot possibly hold a solution for the issue.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reality is the HSE broke a pay link that has been in existence since the 1960s. They had no right to do that and they now need to restore it and honour the Labour Court recommendation. It\u2019s a very simple dispute, there\u2019s a very simple resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n The difference between the two pay rates is \u20ac233,000 a year for all 25 perfusionists, which is \u201cnot even 0.5 per cent of the health budget\u201d, said Kelly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surgeries requiring heart-lung machines may have to be cancelled next week if the country\u2019s 25 perfusionists, who monitor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[275],"tags":[18,13265,135,475,2450,474,19,17,11019],"class_list":["post-517173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-eire","tag-forsa","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-service-executive-hse","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-labour-court"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116688425205512908","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}