SIGNIFICANT DISRUPTION TO diagnostic tests both in hospitals and GP surgeries is expected as medical scientists are due to strike tomorrow, in the first of six planned days of industrial action.

The Medical Laboratory Scientists Association (MLSA), which represents more than 2,100 medical scientists, has said the dispute centres on a decades-long demand for pay parity with colleagues in laboratories who are doing the same work.

The union has said medical scientists are paid on average 8% less than colleagues in hospital laboratories who are doing the same work.

Medical scientists carry out a range of diagnostics tests, including blood tests and analysis of tissue samples for inpatients in hospitals and GP patients in the community.

The HSE has said the strike will lead to the cancellation of many inpatient and day-case elective procedures and hospital outpatient appointments across the country. Services that will continue include dialysis and some cancer services. 

“While efforts are continuing to try to avert this action, the HSE is working with the MLSA to ensure arrangements are in place on the day for the provision of a limited range of services safely,” it said.

“We anticipate that this action will have a knock on effect on Emergency Departments and is expected to lead to delays for patients with non-urgent care needs.”

Speaking to The Journal ahead of tomorrow’s strike, General Secretary of the MLSA Terry Casey said any disruption to this vital service will “regrettably have an impact”, but  after 20 years of trying to resolve these issues, medical scientists “feel it is necessary”. 

He said there will be a “limited run of Covid testing” in acute hospitals as a result of the action and GPs have been asked not to send any samples tomorrow. Hospitals and GPs have been told to expect delays in results this week and over the coming weeks as the industrial action escalates.

Pay parity

A 2001 expert group report recommended that medical scientists should be paid on a scale equal to biochemists. This was briefly implemented, but was lost within months in the first public service benchmarking process in June 2002, which evaluated the pay and jobs of public service roles. 

“That was something the association had been working on for ten to 15 years prior to that, so for us to get it and then have it taken away again was a huge disappointment,” Casey said. “This is fundamentally about equal pay for equal work.”

He said staff are “exasperated and frustrated” at the lack of progress that has been made and have now started to lose confidence in the dispute resolution process.

“They really believe there is merit to the argument they’re making and they can’t comprehend why we haven’t been able to make progress on it,” he said.

“I have to stress that they’re proud healthcare workers, they want to be in the lab assisting with the diagnosis and treatment of patients, labs are critical to the effective running of the healthcare service but there’s a measure of anger now among members that we’ve got to this stage.

“While they are frontline workers they’re not visible to patients so they do feel that they’re forgotten.”

Casey said the recruitment crisis in healthcare is also impacting this cohort of workers, with up to 20% of approved medical scientists posts unfilled in hospitals.

He said many in small to medium sized laboratories work “very onerous rotas”.

“Most disciplines have to be covered 24/7 and 365 days a year so that requires staff to work on call at nights and weekends. Some people are nearly spending more time in the lab than they are in their own homes,” he said. 

The Irish Association for Emergency Medicine (IAEM) has expressed concern about the “significant disruption” the strike will cause across Emergency Departments tomorrow. 

“The absence of this expertise and the services these professionals provide will inevitably have a very negative impact on patient care,” the association said in a statement.

“The Association’s understanding is that the issues at the heart of this dispute are long-standing and have remained unaddressed for an extended period. It therefore calls on all parties to resolve this impasse as a matter of urgency, if necessary using the normal industrial relations machinery of the state to assist.”

The action tomorrow follows a round of talks after the Public Service Agreement Group (PSAG) referred the parties to re-engage.

The MLSA had served notice for industrial action on 30 March but deferred the action after it was invited to new talks under the dispute resolution mechanism of the Building Momentum Public Service Pay Agreement.

Casey said the association has not received any fresh proposals from the HSE since then and members felt they were left with no other option but to strike. 

In a ballot of MLSA members last November 98% voted in favour of taking the action.

Tomorrow is just the first of six action days planned over the months of May and June. Medical scientists are also planning to strike on 24, 25 and 31 May and on 1 and 2 June.