Tag Archives: Junior Doctors

00145261Dr Fred English protesting working hours outside St James’ Hospital, Dublin in 2013

Europe’s highest court has held that Ireland is in breach of EU law because it does not consider the training of junior doctors as part of their normal “working time.”

In an opinion, published this morning, the European Court of Justice held that the government was wrong to assume that the training of junior doctors did not fall within the remit of the EU Working Time Directive, which governs the maximum hours that EU citizens work and minimum rest periods.

The opinion noted that junior doctors are required to both provide a medical service and to carry out training to a high level, and that according to HSE rules themselves there was no “artificial barrier” between both requirements.

There you go now.

Ireland in breach of law over doctors’ hours – European Court of Justice (RTÉ)

Previously: Junior Doctors on Broadsheet

903168879031674790316741 90316885 903168889031689090316893The junior doctors protest today in Dublin at the Mater, St James’s and Temple Street hospitals..

From top: Dr. Fred English outside St James’s Hospital; Dr Rishi Watson outside the Mater Hospital; Outside the Mater; Dr. Darren Lillis and Dr. Caroine Larkin outside St James’s hospital; the exterior of St James’s; Jake McNamara and his father Cedric and junior doctors outside Temple Street; Outside Temple Street;

Earlier: Meanwhile At The Mater

(Mark Stedman and Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)

90312341Irish Medical Organisation staff, from left, Val Moran, Leah Kenny and Tom Smyth with ballot papers this afternoon following a vote by some of the country’s 4.900 junior doctors on whether to take industrial action over working conditions.

UPDATE: the junior doctors have voted for industrial action. They are obliged to give the government two weeks’ notice of a strike.

Junior doctors set to strike over 100-hour weeks (Herald)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)