Next Monday 270 public health doctors will go on strike. These doctors provide an important service which is often undervalued but is crucial in protecting the public good. Unless the Minister for Health and Children takes action to resolve this dispute we are facing the prospect of a withdrawal of key medical personnel including those at the Disease Surveillance Centre, an end to safeguards currently in place to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and a block to the development of a strategy to protect this country from the spread of diseases from abroad. The need for such a strategy is now pressing in the context of the holding of the Special Olympics, a major international event involving over 35,000 people travelling to Ireland from many parts of the world.
The current threat of the SARS virus as well as other infectious diseases is greatly increased by travel yet we have no indication from the Government as to its intentions in protecting public safety. What steps is the Minister for Health and Children taking to resolve this dispute? His bland statement that this matter be referred to the Labour Court has been shown to be grossly inadequate. Is he aware of the complexity of the issues involved? Is he aware, for example, that public health doctors receive no payment for their out-of-hours work?
In view of the call by the EU Commissioner, David Byrne, today for an effective early warning system to be developed on an EU wide basis to deal with the threat of infectious diseases what is he doing to develop a good public health infrastructure in Ireland in line with other EU countries? What preparations are in place to carry out risk assessment in relation to the travel associated with the Special Olympics and what briefing is being done to inform the international delegations of the true nature of our public health infrastructure? Does the Minister for Health and Children agree that we cannot afford to wait for a crisis to occur before this issue is addressed and that the best approach to fears being expressed by members of the public is to implement a clearly understood and resourced strategy of public health measures?
Does the Minister also accept that his tardiness on this issue compares badly with the effective and well funded strategy which was successful in combating the threat of foot and mouth disease in animals and that it is hard to fathom why measures are still in place in our airports to counteract this disease among animals while there appears to be no measures in place to prevent the spread of infectious disease among humans?
Currently there are no special arrangements in place to prevent the spread of SARS in Ireland. Internationally the rate of spread has lessened but this should not be a cause of complacency. Countries like Canada, China and others in Asia are experiencing serious problems in terms of the containment and prevention of the spread of this disease. Already the World Health Organisation has criticised the failure of the Chinese authorities to provide full information on SARS. Is the Government satisfied that guidance given by the World Health Organisation is based on complete information? Will the Minister for Health and Children outline how he will ensure that public health doctors will be in place from Monday onwards and that there will be a mechanism in place to resolve the ongoing and long-standing difficulties in relation to their complaints to ensure they can be resolved? Will he ensure we have a clear and good public health infrastructure to protect the population here in terms of infectious diseases like meningitis or measles but also to deal with these new diseases like SARS, which has only recently become evident but clearly has attached risks that can lead to deaths in our population as it has led to deaths in other populations if it is not properly addressed?