A group of theatre staff at five of the country’s larger hospitals are to take strike action on Tuesday in a dispute over pay.
Perfusionists operate the machinery that performs the function of a patient’s heart and lungs during some surgeries and are key staff for certain procedures.
About 25 perfusionists based at St James’s, the Mater, Crumlin (CHI), Cork University Hospital and Galway University Hospital are involved in the Fórsa-organised stoppage on Tuesday.
Emergency cover is to be provided, the union has said, but it is understood 14 surgeries, two of them paediatric, have been cancelled. The HSE has confirmed that those patients affected have been informed of the rescheduling.
The dispute centres on a claim for the restoration of pay parity with a larger group of workers, medical scientists, which the union says was broken two years ago.
The pay of perfusionists was traditionally linked to that of the roughly 2,000 medical scientists working in the health service – an arrangement that dated back to about 1960 – and had been acknowledged in much more recent collective agreements.
When the medical scientists won a case for parity with biochemists, however, the resulting 2024 pay increase was not passed on to the perfusionists.
In a recent Labour Court hearing, the HSE acknowledged the historical link but said it had been severed by the report that had recommended the increase for the medical scientists. It also argued the claim was cost-increasing, which is prohibited under the Public Service Agreement (PSA).
It suggested the outstanding claim should be dealt with through the local bargaining element of the PSA, which provides for increases of up to 3 per cent targeted to address outstanding issues over the course of the current agreement and its successor, which is due to be negotiated later this year.
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Fórsa rejected this, arguing that the recommendations should automatically apply to the smaller cohort of workers from the same date medical scientists benefited.
The court backed the union’s position, saying it was in line with existing agreements that the HSE had unilaterally breached. It recommended the concession of the increases backdated to January 1st, 2024.
The HSE said it had not had the required sanction to implement the recommendation.
In a recent message to the members affected, Fórsa national secretary Linda Kelly said the failure to implement the recommendation amounted to a unilateral pay cut.
The union says the Labour Court recommendation was “unequivocal” and it would be considered normal for organisations like the HSE and government departments to abide by it.
The HSE said on Monday it “remains firmly committed to continuing engagement with the union … with a view to avoiding further industrial action”.
