Hospital consultants yesterday called for the appointment of an independent facilitator to oversee talks on the provision of professional insurance cover amid claims that doctors could be made "bankrupt" without a resolution of the issue.
he Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) accused the Department of Health and the Medical Defence Union (MDU) of conducting negotiations in a "haphazard manner".
However, Mr Michael O'Keeffe, chairman of the IHCA's negotiating committee said "primary responsibility" lay with the Department as it had been "aware of this problem for 10 years, and had given the MDU the impression that they wanted to solve the problem."
The Department, he said, "may be playing silly games with us". He called on it to publish an independent report which apparently estimated the cost of negligence claims against public consultants at more than €450 million.
The crisis over insurance cover for obstetrics intensified last week when the MDU announced that its estimated 800 consultant members in the Republic could only rely on discretionary assistance in the future.
