A hospital consultants' group said this afternoon it was willing to work with the Government in tackling problems within the health sector but not before the issues of historic insurance claims and a State insurance scheme are resolved.
Responding to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern's call for consultants to cooperate with reforms of the health service, the Secretary General of the Irish Hospital Consultant's Association (ICHA), Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick said that they were "more than willing to co-operate" in shaping the future of the health services in Ireland.
He said that ahead of such cooperation, however, a "number of issues" must first be resolved in the immediate future.
These include protecting consultants in respect of historic insurance claims and concluding negotiations on the package involving the state scheme to insure consultants.
"Once that's out of the way we are happy to deal with the institutional issues," he said.
Mr Fitzpatrick said the core problems in the Irish Health Services were issues of capacity and resources, especially delivering on the commitments in the National Health Strategy including the provision of 3000 extra hospital beds.
Mr Ahern's comments on RTÉ Radio today were in reaction to today's launch of a new protest group against proposed hospital reforms.
The new lobby group calls itself the Health Services Action Group and it is made up of 15 hospital action groups and a group representing GPs and consultants
It says it plans to campaign vigorously against the centralisation of acute hospital services and the downgrading of 26 general hospitals proposed in the Hanly report.
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